Monday, November 7, 2016

Thank God It's Election Day, Rudy Must Be Trump's Fluffer




Hey there, pussy grabbing Americans, tomorrow is the big day, enough time for The Donald to release his tax returns and show us proof how badly the election is rigged. One sex scandal not much reported on is how many times Rudy Giuliani has had to suck off the Donald just so he wouldn't get too angry and excited and stay on course, reading the damned teleprompter at each rally these past few days. What Rudy wouldn't do to have a chance at becoming the next Attorney General...

Pundits are saying that the Donald won't concede the election, but he might take a high-dive off of the Trump Tower...

I'm cynical enough to realize that the GOP will not reorganize themselves into a more inclusive political party with policies that aren't pulled out of Paul Ryan's butthole... What is needed is for a lot of young Bernie Sanders supporters to join the Republican Party and force it kicking and screaming into the 21st Century... All of the rest of this past election cycle is a sad commentary on our political history. Our credibility on the world stage has been trashed, people have been pining to bring back the divine rule of royalty...


Monday, October 31, 2016

I Voted Early, Now Time For the Election Party






I was able to vote early because Colorado allows us to fill out our ballots and mail them in or drop them off at several collection centers around town. We don't trust the mail, so our ballots were dropped off at the county registrar's office... Now all that's left is to continue watching the craziness of these last few days on television and the results on Nov 8. I hope to have a good cigar and some brandy and get lost in the election ferver, constantly switching between news channels. I used to go to the basement of the county building, where the up to date results from local candidates and ballot measures are posted on chalkboards as they come in from each precinct. It gets very busy with representatives from all parties mingling and slinging bullshit.

I expect Donald Trump to lose, despite the closing gap in the poll numbers. A whole bunch of evangelical preachers have been raising The Donald to a holy level, saying God is intervening against Hillary Clinton because she embodies the spirit of Jezebel. And she's been putting up with this kind of demonization for over 30 years... But ever since Sarah Palin was chosen as a running mate for John McCain, the vitriol and violence and slinging outrageous lies have been getting worse.

The worst part of this election has been watching what a horrible person Donald Trump really is, and his children aren't much better. The thought of Donald Jr, Jeff Sessions, Newt Gingrich, and the flat out nutcase Rudy Guiliani having input into the making of the next government is truly frightening, beyond the fringe of Tea Party frightening.

I expect the Republican Party to either dissolve, or actually reorganize itself into a more inclusive and tolerant political party, with the right wing extremists breaking off to form their own American Patriot party. At Fox News, the contracts for Megan Kelly and Bill O'Reilly will end, and they might choose to move on, Kelly to CNN or MSNBC and O'Reilly to the new network that Trump will begin with the Breitbart web site...

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Finally, Vladimir Putin Imitates Donald Trump



"Look, I'm very much a fatalist."     - Donald Trump




I haven't written for a few days because my mismanagement of my diabetes medicine almost put me into a coma. I sometimes wonder if I'm trying to commit suicide, but I told myself to wait until my cat passed away and I have no more responsibilities keeping me here, other than this blog, of course...

Much has been written about the imaginary link between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, I have called Mr. Trump a minion of Mr. Putin because of Mr. Trump's admiration for Mr. Putin, which he has expressed several times. So far, that admiration seems to go one direction only, like a bad hair day or an ageing boy band...

But now it seems that Mr. Putin is taking the lead from Donald Trump and has fired his chief of staff, replacing him with a servant who has done such tasks as following Mr. Putin around while carrying his umbrella. Anton Vaino, who really was a faceless minion before his promotion, replaces an old crony, Sergei Ivanov, who also was minister of defense at one time and thought to be a replacement for Mr. Putin before Vlad found a way around his country's term limit laws... Mr. Trump had fired his chief of staff only a couple of months earlier, letting Cory Lendowski become the main Trump apologist at CNN. THAT'S RIGHT, who's the bitch now???

Mr. Putin is slowly replacing his cabinet with former bodyguards and intelligence agents, the kind of people who take steroids and condone the doping of athletes. What if they all were cycling through the same drug during cabinet meetings, and Vlad happened to make a condescending remark, would they go apeshit and tear him to pieces like wild wolverines? Some food for thought...

Meanwhile, The Donald has become a bit morose lately, considering the thought that he might lose the election, or rile a crowd up so much that they tear someone apart like wild wolverines, a metaphor that can serve both Russia and the US... All of the talk of Republicans publically coming out and saying that they cannot support him, ex-intelligence officials saying that he doesn't have the temperament needed to be a president, others saying he is mentally ill, and the pressure to release his tax returns, which would turn more people away from him, has been getting him a tad depressed and wondering if he should just walk away from it all, away from his annoying kids who are even dumber than he is ( oh yeah, except for Ivanka, who can lie just as easily as her father, talking about women's pay and maternity rights at the GOP convention, while omitting the fact that the foreign sweatshops she contracts to make her clothing line don't give time off for anything...), send his dumb trophy wife back to Slovenia to finish her college degree, and spend the rest of his days playing golf and boasting to whomever will listen about how great he was... Actually, not a bad life for someone over 70...








Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Does Trump Need a Psychiatric Intervention?



We know that there is something seriously wrong with Donald Trump's behavior as the Republican candidate for president, unless you are a supporter, then he can do more wrong, and the more people he pisses off the better... I just figured it was because he was the son of rich parents, grew up being a bully and could pay for the privilege. But I saw a section on Lawrence O'Donnel's show on MSNBC, and today a Democratic House member put up a petition on a website to get a medical intervention and have a doctor look at Donald Trump for narcissistic personality disorder... Below are the official items to look for from the diagnostic manual that is promoted and used by the insurance companies when they reimburse doctors:

DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder include these features:
  • Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • Exaggerating your achievements and talents
  • Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
  • Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
  • Requiring constant admiration
  • Having a sense of entitlement
  • Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
  • Taking advantage of others to get what you want
  • Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • Being envious of others and believing others envy you
  • Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

To qualify for a diagnoses, you need to have at least six out of the nine mentioned above. Donald fulfills all of them. This is why Barack Obama and others have been saying that he doesn't have the healthy mentality required for the office. It also has nothing to do if you are a Hillary supporter or not... A person can function having this disorder, it is quite common among CEO's of large corporations and military generals, but we need to think twice if we want someone acting out in full blown crazy mode in charge of our military and has the nuclear codes and said previously that he might use them. There is medication that helps, maybe it would tone Donald down, make him more tolerable...


It certainly would be a first in modern history that a presidential candidate is forced to be checked out by a shrink. There are many Republicans who are getting off the Trump train, especially after he refused to support Paul Ryan and John McCain, who are both up for re-election, and was abusive and dismissive towards a Muslim family who lost their son by a roadside bomb a few years ago...

The creepy part is that Rudy Guiliani and Newt Gingrich are considered two people who has the most clout with The Donald... I thought that I wouldn't write about Mr. Trump for awhile, but he keeps on shooting himself in his feet, it's amazing that he has any toes left... But then, he still goes out and gets large crowds whose adulation and energy he can feed off of, and they may well clap and cheer at him as he continues to spiral down into a paranoid, narcissistic hell...




Saturday, July 30, 2016

I Want a Little Polonium In My Bowl...





The pundits keep on speculating on the amount of hacking and influencing Russia is trying to interfere with our current presidential election. We've all read by now the stories of purported Russian intelligence groups with stupid bear names were rooting around in the DNC email servers and then giving over 3000  email files to WikiLeaks to publish. Julian Assange is holed up still in the Ecuadorian embassy threatening to publish more unless, what, people will get embarrassed by what a political ass they are? Red flags should have been raised by a hack that any sixth grade kid can do...

Granted, the US and Russia have a long, grand tradition of spying on each other over the last 60 years, enough to fill the coffers of Hollywood movie studios and publishing houses everywhere... The current conceit is that Vladimir Putin is enthralled of Donald Trump enough to consider him one of his minions; he actually said that Donald was quite the colorful character, which Donald typically blew up to mean that Putin considered him to be a genius. One could say that the reason Donald feels such an affinity for Mr. Putin is because they both singlehandedly are trying to make their countries great again, while fleecing millions from the public in the process.

And yes, we, too, have hacked into Russian servers for information, though nowadays it's a lot easier to wait until an ex-premier moves to the US or an oligarch buys a basketball franchise... In fact, I wonder where Mr Putin has selected his next estate, will it be in Florida or California? Remember Vlad, it's still easier to send ricin through our mails than to send a minion with one of those clunky polonium isotopes to act as an ice cube...

This story will last until The Donald shoots himself in the foot again. He cannot stop himself from over-reacting to the slightest criticism. My favorites from the DNC was that every time someone gave a good speech the Trump minions would say how it was plagiarized...



Friday, July 29, 2016

DNC Day 4: Hillary Survives Expectations



The burning question for this evening was: could Hillary hit it out of the park with her acceptance speech? The answer is no, of course she couldn't, nobody could compete with Barack and Michelle Obama, but she did give one of the better ones of her career. And she doesn't like giving speeches...

We had been on thunderstorm watch all evening, and right when it was time for her speech, the electricity went off. I figured that it was a local Republican plot engineered by Doug Lamborn, but that would be giving him far too much credit in planning and initiative... So I went next door, where my neighbor had lit candles and had a battery powered radio. We didn't make s'mores, but I was happy to get a bottle of cold water...

Hillary was still speaking when the power came back on and the cable had cycled back on. Given the reaction to the convention as a whole, it should be a done deal to elect our first woman president. But there is this nagging in the back of my head, warning me about the power of negativity, how it's so much easier to take things apart and smash things than build something, especially if you want a consensus before moving on...

If Hillary can fulfill one or two of her progressive promises, it will be a minor miracle, unless more Democrats win in the Senate and in the House, otherwise she will be banging her head against the wall as much as Obama did.

The Senate will be without the freshmen Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. People say that Ted will be the front-runner in four years, but I think he will sink thankfully into obscurity while more moderate heads try and rebuild the Republican Party into something that doesn't resemble a riot at the insane asylum, warning, warning, the inmates have taken over...

Donald Trump tried to piss on her parade by tweeting up a storm, but was generally ignored... So, he took his wife's web site off of the internet. This way she sure won't screw up again, and he can control what she says from now on just like he has to control everything else in her life. Hope you got a good prenup Melania, because if Donald loses he will soon be divorcing you...

Well, on towards election twilight, where the candidates seem dimmer and less clear the more I contemplate them, ghosts of their rhetorical pasts, only brightened momentarily by a presidential debate. And really, someone needs to pry his cellphone from Donald's tiny, tiny hands, and cancel his tweet account. Let him start watching porn late at night like any normal 70 year old guy...

Thursday, July 28, 2016

DNC Day 3: So You Wanna Revolution...


Well, you're not going to get it at the Democratic Convention, no matter how hard core a Bernie fan you are. Look kids, you have to learn how to work for the things you want to happen, you will get knocked back many times, many times it will seem hopeless, and by the time you are in your 70's it may seem that you accomplished very little. Hell, Bernie Sanders spent 25 years in Congress and accomplished very little, he was happier giving speeches than crafting legislature...

This convention has been the closest to a love-in as you can get these days, too bad the group from Colorado didn't bring enough bud for everyone. You may have noticed that on day one they stayed in their section when 4:20 in the afternoon rolled past... There may have been tension and booing, with Sara Silverman, of all people, telling them they were ridiculous... Actually, my favorite booing came when Leon Panetta spoke. I liked him as a Congressman, not so much as Secretary of Defense because he was over his head, and especially not as head of the CIA, which needs to be dismantled or at least no longer allowed to do covert operations... So I sat in my chair and laughed and booed along with them, go back to Monterrey, ya old clunker!!!!

Pundits agreed that until last night, Michelle Obama gave the best speech. During her pauses you could almost hear Melania Trump taking notes... Then, Barack Obama spoke. If you have access to something like YouTube, go and watch it. It was one of the best speeches I have ever heard, noted for its grace, lyricism, hope and warmth for how elegantly he passed the baton to Hillary. I had tears in my eyes and the last time that happened was during Obama's inaugural speech... One pundit on MSNBC said that in the 30 years he's been covering political conventions, he's only heard 4 good speeches, and Barack Obama has given them all... I'm a registered Republican, but Barack's speech has made me vote Democratic again, Donald Trump just doesn't have a big enough heart, and he certainly doesn't have the soul to match Obama, who is a better father than Trump, a better dresser than Trump, is more elegant than Trump, can tell a joke better than Trump, and is a better husband than Trump will ever be...

And when Hillary came out at the end of his speech, they hugged, and there was no booing, only cheers, and quite a few others had tears in their eyes, too. It was a beautiful hug, one that you wished for yourself, and I doubt if Hillary will be able to do better tonight on her own.

If her husband Bill, and Michelle and Barack can go around the country and campaign for her, she should easily win. The Republicans only have Mike Pense, who has a radio talk show host tone of voice and a very narrow vision of the world. Both Mike and Tim Kaine are Catholics, so it should be interesting to see how they bring their differing views of faith into a debate.

Anyway, I was surprised that I have been enjoying the Democratic convention as much as I have, and I think it's because the organizers planned for it to be on a more positive note, and more inclusive. It is the kind of political convention that you are proud for people in other countries to see, how a democracy is supposed to work, and thank god there have been no Duck Dynasty guys or Scott Baio's cluttering up the stage. This may have been the un-grumpiest post I have ever done, I will try to get back in form. I just need to read about world politics to get pleasantly pissed off, and a couple of days after this convention...




Wednesday, July 27, 2016

DNC Day 2: Bill Clinton Rocks



It usually takes me a few days to soak in what I've experienced, I no longer like to jump right into the fray and thrash about, trying to embarrass someone in public and sometimes reduce them to tears. Sorry about that, Larry, you're really not as dumb as I said you were...

I admire the intensity of the Bernie supporters, I might be one if I was in my 20's again. I remember talking to a college student about 16 years ago, and he asked me if I had ever protested the Vietnam War. He thought I was lucky to have a real situation like a war to protest, when his generation had nothing... of course I told him to wait a few years and our leaders would find somewhere to go to war so he could protest... And here we are bogged down in the Middle East, in a never-ending war... yet people are protesting that Bernie Sanders lost in the primaries as a candidate for president... seems this generation has a skewed sense of outrage and anger, I wonder if their parents are the ones expressing conservative outrage, dancing around and shouting "lock her up!" ... maybe the two groups could face off in an MMA octagon cage, it might make Mike Pense and Tim Cain look less boring... the match I'd really like to see, of course, is The Donald squaring off against Elizabeth Warren,,,

I'm still waiting for the Democrats to bring on a real stand-up comedian, someone really vicious and nasty like Anthony Jeselnik or Jeff Ross...

Ohhhhh, I have been rambling, time for my afternoon meds... Bill Clinton gave the best speech of Day 2, it was sweet and gave insight into the woman he married, and listed a lot of early accomplishments that many people may not have known about. It seems that Hillary needs to brag more often, because it was an impressive list consistently helping women and children's health and legal access... When her staff talks, they often ignore the elephant in the room, what will they do with Bill after Hillary gets elected? Gonna have to give him some supervision, can't let him wander off to get into trouble, can't assign him an intern, and it's never been done before, giving a former president another job at the White House... Just like we could give Donald Trump the permanent job of going around giving speeches on how he's making America great again, maybe book him with someone like Jeff Ross, call it the Great American Insult Tour, admission free, don't forget to strap on your guns for safety and protection... everyone can win and have a place to be expressive, except for Ted Cruz...


Tuesday, July 26, 2016

DNC Day 1




Ok, I got to watch all of the speeches, and they were more positive than negative. Bernie Sanders gave a speech that tried to persuade his delegates to vote for Hillary. Better speeches were given by Cory Booker, Michelle Obama, and Elizabeth Warren...

Other than that, I don't have any criticisms, which I thought I would, and I'm pleasantly surprised. If the rest of the convention is like this, I'll be feeling all warm and fuzzy by the time Hillary Clinton gives her acceptance speech...

Monday, July 25, 2016

From Russia to the DNC With Love



Wow, the Democratic National Convention begins tonight and I'm not ready for it. I'm exhausted emotionally from my visit to Mordor at the RNC convention and all of the violence that has happened over the weekend in Germany, Afghanistan, and Florida. When I said that it was gong to be a hot, violent Summer, I didn't really mean it, just a turn of the phrase. Let's now predict that the rest of the Summer will be spent in more peaceful pursuits, with those angry individuals seeking help instead of acting out their dark fantasies...

We have a couple of my sister's grandkids coming to visit, so I many not make it to the television, may have to view it on this tiny laptop... I also thought that the DNC would be a lot more boring, but it seems that already my assumption has proven wrong! Russia has been spying on the Democratic Party, along with the State Department and the Pentagon. One Russian intelligence group has been sneaking through files over a year and was just discovered three months ago, which kinda makes Hillary Clinton smart for using her own private servers, that were evidently harder to hack into that the US government, which has been no secret among hackers. She was just following the lead of former heads of the State Department, Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell, both Republicans who have not been investigated and who both had their own private servers... The simplest way to protect files is to take the servers that they are stored on and put them offline. Otherwise, any computer that is hooked up to a network can be hacked, the flaw is in the nature of the design...

Anyway, the weekend before the Democratic convention WikiLeaks published over 3000 emails that were on their server, embarrassing top Democratic officials and causing the Democratic Party chairperson to resign. The conspiracy theory is that Vladimir Putin himself ordered the publishing of the documents because:

1) it's payback for the US's involvement in getting Russia's athletes banned from the Rio Olympics and exposing the long lasting Russian doping program sponsored by Putin's government, or

2) he is trying to mess up and influence the American election, skew the election in favor of his mini-me, Donald Trump. Perhaps Vladimir is using Melania Trump to send coded messages disguised as fashion advice... Perhaps someone should recheck her convention speech to see if there isn't some plagarism from Das Capital...


The other conspiracy theory going around is the incredibly paranoid vision of Turkey's president-for-life-in-his-dreams, Recep Erdogan, blaming the recent failed military coup on an old friend who has been living in Pennsylvania since 1999... OK, so maybe this guy has a sinister dark side and plays puppet master through all of his schools and businesses, many which are in Turkey. Or maybe he just thinks that Erdogan has taken one toke over the line and he is criticizing him for the increasing autocratic way Erdogan is ruling Turkey these days. He did declare martial law for three months, giving his police special powers to arrest and interrogate without an ok from a judge, and the Turkish police can now come into your house to search it and take your valuables as "evidence," just like the US soldiers did in Iraq... Yes, he's trying to get rid of as many journalists as he can. canceling their credentials, or, if they are Turkish, having them fired... It's time for someone to hit him with a stick, much like the Buddhists do in group meditation, and bring him back to a sane consciousness...

The US and Turkey have an extradition treaty, so we could give Fethullah Gulen to Turkey, the Justice department has said give us your evidence, but so far Turkey has squat. Erdogan's personal spokesman wrote an article for the opinion page of the New York Times, where he tried to squash the rumor that Erdogan himself planned the attempted coup in order to get more power and to purge all followers of his old friend Mr. Gulen. The half-assed way that the coup played out suggested that it was planned by some amateur who just so happened was staying at a party house on the Turkish Riviera. His schill stated that "The claim that this was a fake coup is no more credible than the laughable  claim that the 9/11 attacks were coordinated by the United States"... Hmmmm, maybe they know something that we don't. Maybe it's time to reopen the 9/11 cases, just to point out all of the mistakes and mis-directions used with the  given evidence, and to put George W Bush on trial for getting us into a false war based on his desire to do one better than his daddy...

On to the convention! Oh what surprises will the Bernie Sanders supporters bring? Nothing as much fun as Vladimir and Recep bring us, but we are carrying a big basket, and there's always room for a few more bad eggs...







Friday, July 22, 2016

What Ailes Fox News, Trump's Red Wedding Speech




We begin with an aside that may affect Fox News for the future of right wing partisan reporting: Roger Ailes has been escorted from the building. One day he was roaming the building, trying to get the news hosts to say something supportive about him on the air. The next day he wasn't allowed into the building, not even to go into his office with an empty box... He was one of the most powerful men in the industry, too bad he tried to use that power to get blowjobs...

Then, 85 year old Rupert Murdoch said that he would step in and run Fox News until he could find a replacement, or he passes away, whichever comes first... Both Bill O'Reilly and Shawn Hannity have said publically that they too would reign if Roger was forced to retire. Let's see if they are men of their words or if they were just trying to line up outside of Roger's office, puckering and moistening their lips...



Onto the convention, where Ivana Trump gave the nicest speech of the convention. If Donald Trump gets elected, he will need people to run his office on a day to day basis, while he is off trying to make America great again. Let's hope that he uses all of the women in his family to fill in the gaps, as they seem more humane and empathetic than The Donald. Plus, there would be Michelle Obama serving as an advisor...

I actually sat through all 90 minutes of The Donald's speech. He was very angry through the whole thing, maybe because he was forced to read off of the teleprompter, and had a very red face, not due to make up and tanning beds. I wondered if he might have a heart attack after twenty minutes of rant, keel over and die, solving the problem of having an upstart outsider as the Republican candidate...

But he made it through, deflated a couple of sizes afterwards. He made lots of promises, all for you the people, but if enacted would lead us to a fascist military state, where we have to give up our personal freedoms but get to keep our guns...

Next week will be the Democratic Convention, and already I know that t will be boring in contrast, because there will be no Hillary bashing. Oh, they will try to bash Donald Trump, but the only way to get under his skin is to make jokes about him. If they do four nights of stand-up comedy, it will be more clever and incisive than having a bunch of serious political speeches. Make sure that Elizabeth Warren tweets throughout, it will drive him nuts because he will have to fight back against every slight, imagined or real. Can you imagine if the Democrats bash back and are just as mean spirited as the Republican speakers, it would show the total dysfunction of our elected officials. Personally, I would like it if Barack Obama would lead for 8 more years, just to see the crazy republican base go fucking nuts and begin to eat their young...


Thursday, July 21, 2016

GOP Day 3: Payback For a Bitch Named Ted




Wow, last night was a letup from the downer of day 1 and the violent intensity of day 2. I wonder what the maestro of chaos has in store for day 3... This was supposed to have been Mike Pense's shining moment as the anointed chosen for the vice presidential slot. So many were vying for the slot and not told they were out of luck until the last minute, including Ohio's governor, John Kasich, who was promised the job by Donald Trump Jr... and that explains why Mr. Kasich is boycotting the convention and has a betrayed look on his face whenever he is questioned by reporters...

Instead, we got the well orchestrated prank that Donald played on Ted Cruz. Many people were
scratching their heads when Mr. Cruz was asked to speak at the convention, they thought there was too much bad blood between him and The Donald, and that he would never give his support to a Trump candidacy.

The fun began in the afternoon as Ted Cruz was on stage at an outdoor rally, only to have Donald Trump buzz the rally in his jet plane before it came in for a landing at the Cleveland airport. It was timed so well that you might think that there was someone in the audience giving the pilot the right time to fly in low, making sure the crowd could read the word TRUMP printed on the side in huge letters...

Then, in prime time, Ted Cruz had the slot speaking right before Mike Pense. I finally got my bottle of beer for the drinking game, you know, taking a swig every time someone calls Hillary Clinton a crook or a liar, and ended up dozing off at the beginning, only to wake up with the pundits on the tube exclaiming how extraordinary the events were, and only added to how bizarre this convention was... Ted figured he would give a little payback himself, and gave his speech really slowly, turning an allotted eight minute speech into 23 minutes, and not once mentioning Donald Trump's name. At the end where he was supposed to endorse Donald, he just said to vote what your conscience tells you to do. Donald had arranged that as a cue for the New York delegation to break out in loud boo's and be as loud as they could. The Secret Service responded by rushing Heidi Cruz out of the auditorium, as Donald made a surprise entrance on stage and the booing turned into cheers... Yes, Ted, you were set up and owned like a teddy bear in a comedy sequel.

To rub it in a bit more, Chris Christy was available for reporters questions, and he answered that now you know how Ted Cruz got his reputation in Congress, of being the most disliked... If anyone thought any of this was spontaneous, I have a bridge in New Jersey to sell you...



And poor Melania Trump. First, we learn that she plagarized part of her big speech she gave at the convention, and to make it worse, she quoted from THE ENEMY, Michelle Obama, whom she secretly admires. Next, a scapegoat was found and an imaginary scenario was concocted where the hapless ghostwriter confesses to Donald her sins and he forgave her because she wrote two of his books and he certainly didn't want another headache like the one with Tony Schwartz, the author of The Art of the Deal. Tony has been delivered a cease and desist letter by the Trump attorneys, because he keeps on giving his opinions that he regrets ever writing the book, and that in his opinion Donald Trump is a sociopath who cannot focus his attention on anything other than himself, and if Donald got control of the nuclear weapons codes, it could mean the end of civilization, literally... Anyway, Donald forgave her for Melania's sins, and has spirited her off to some secret corner of the Trump Tower where she cannot let down her hair.

Next, comes the revelation that Melania doesn't really have a university degree like she said she has, and that she actually dropped out of an obscure Slovenian university in her freshman year... the hits just keep on coming folks...

This convention has been really weird, I can hardly wait and see what fun things Donald will say tonight in his acceptance speech, will he go full bore batshit crazy like Rumpleforeskin Giuliani? We know that he will perpetuate the lies that have been told and retold that Hillary Clinton had something to do with the deaths in Benghazi, and she is responsible for all the evil that has sprung up in the world, will he go the distance like Ben Carson did and link her to Lucifer? I still have another bottle of beer that I will sip slowly and try to stay awake when it all hits the fan and the fun begins!!!



Wednesday, July 20, 2016

GOP Convention Day 2: Politics By Blunt Instruments



Before I get into last night's coverage of the GOP Hillary bashing, let's talk about the world we live in and the strange response to violence or even criticism of a country's leaders. Why must we respond with a move towards fascism and censorship? Even France seems to want permanent martial law... Of course, I still can't figure out why France has been attacked by jihadists so much, it has been the friendliest to Muslim refugees and been more inclusive than most other European countries...

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded to the recent failed coup, by vowing punishment and revenge to the extreme end of the spectrum. Over the past 16 years he has moved to a more autocratic style of rule, which is fueled by his guilt and paranoia. It has finally exploded in his revenge on an old friend turned enemy, a Sufi cleric who lives in Pennsylvania since 1999... Mr Erdogan has purged his military by 35,000 members, 15,000 education ministry employees are gone, 21,000 teachers and 1,500 university deans have been dismissed. Sounds like he has been making his lists for a long time... And now he is insisting that the US deport the Sufi cleric back to Turkey so he can put him in jail and torture him.

Besides the personal animosity between these guys, there has been a long history of both Sunnis and Shiites persecuting the Sufis as heretics. Sufism is essentially mystical teachings, and usually ignores the more crazy pronouncements by the Sunni and Shiite clerics, which makes them burn down Sufi shrines, like they have done in Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria in recent years. ISIS hates Sufis and have been responsible for many of the shrine attacks...

Israel just passed a law allowing them one step closer to autocratic right-wing rule, by allowing their congress to vote out members they find offensive, mostly Arab members that they previously had to allow because they were voted in. If this keeps up, who will support an Israel that ends up more resembling fascism than any other country in the Middle East or Europe?




All I really can say about the 2nd day of the GOP convention, is that I am emotionally drained and
depressed after witnessing another evening of mean spirited, brutal Hillary bashing. I have never seen politics played out at this level of negativity, and if I were someone just tuning in by curiosity, I would be shocked and repelled... And to think there's more of this tonight, well I might watch the Jason Bourne trilogy again for some relief...

Ironically, the best speech of the night, and best speech of the convention so far, was given by Donald Trump Jr. He read the teleprompter way too fast, and has yet to learn when to make pause for emphasis, but as a newcomer to political speechmaking, he blew the socks off of the older, more experienced white guys. ( No people of ethnicity tonight, guess they shot their wad on that... )

For a guy with three wives and children by each of them, The Donald has turned out some nice kids, who speak highly of him even though they were never raised by him. I think that it's because he accepts them into his businesses and set them up in their own that they are grateful and positive towards him, enough to overlook his rough and nasty public persona and cruel putdowns. Hey, even Chris Christy came back like a lapdog and gave a mean speech last night...

George W Bush has given the fear that this may be the last Republican Convention, especially if Trump gets trounced. Lord knows it needs to purge the right-wing crazies who have no sense of humor. I must insist on getting a sixpack of beer for tonight, I am such a lightweight that I'll be drunk after the first five minutes of continued Hillary bashing. Who knows, maybe it is time to move to New Zealand...

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

GOP Convention Day 1: Cleveland or Busted




I wasn't sure what to expect from the Republican Convention, but it has turned out to be more entertaining that ever I could have hoped. Too bad I no longer drink alcohol, because the theme of the evening was to disparage Hillary Clinton. The drinking game would be to imbibe every time one of the minions mentions Crooked Hillary or Lying Hillary, and I would have been wasted early into the program... Of course, I'm waiting for the Clinton Camp to rejoin with something like, what do you expect from Dumb Ass Donald???

The convention began with hijinks and chicanery, resulting with the Colorado delegation getting up en mass and walking out... Several states had wanted to amend some of the convention rules, that would have freed up delegates bound to vote for The Donald, and allow them to vote for someone else on the first round of voting, perhaps allowing for someone else to become the nominee. It takes a certain amount of the delegates to petition for a role call vote, and one had been called on from the floor. The chairperson suddenly left the stage for several minutes, and when he came back announced that three of the states had withdrawn from the petition and then had a vote by voice recognition, and of course he recognized that the ayes had the loudest side, and passed the rules without any further debate... This was when the Colorado folks got up and left, the only state to do so. Since I currently live in Colorado, it brought a tear to my eye to see them do me so proud...

So much for the boring rules and procedures, which gave way to many people shouting and booing and telling the media tales of cheating and frustration, which the media sucked up as if it were primo cocaine... Then came the prime time show...

The Trump organization had promised famous celebrities, but all we got was the boring child of Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty, and a low level child television star who looked like a muppet... Then came the doom and gloom portion, designed to freak you out, and it certainly went over the top on that. This is where the vilifying of Hillary began in earnest, but I would have been pretty buzzed after the Duck guy and Scott Baio finished, and certainly was not prepared for Pat Smith, the mother of a foreign service worker who died in an ambush at Benghazi, Libya. She was a walking raw wound, with a practiced haunted look in her eyes, and her grief was raw and rubbed with salt, it was painful to witness. Then she went off the railings by accusing Hillary Clinton of murder, and complaining that the State Department stopped talking to her... What she didn't disclose was that her son's death had permanently unhinged her, and the guy's wife had asked the State Department to stop talking to the crazy woman. That the RNC brought this woman up onto the stage and tried to use her by manipulating our empathy was pretty foul and reprehensible, the poor woman needed a good grief counselor. not a stage meant for political theater...

There were a couple of good speeches about the patriotic duty of military service that were more
generic than political, and would have fit in at any high school rally across the country... Then came several black speakers who talked trash on Clinton, giving rise to the speculation that the speakers on the stage were of a more diverse background that the whole of the delegates... And then came Rudy Giuliani... Have you ever listened to a one on one interview with Rudy? The man is brash, doesn't listen, and must go on and on trying to make his ill reasoned points. His speech was inflammatory, shouted all the way through, giving one commentator to speculate that he looked like he was going to bite the head off of a bat at any moment...

As a nice contrast to the intensity and bummer factor of the previous speakers, luckily no-one committed suicide ( as close to a jihadist joke I can allow myself to make right now, sorry ), the featured speaker was then Melania Trump. I expected her to basically say that she enjoyed Donald's money very much, and if they lost, please don't deport her back to Slovenia, but she actually gave a nice speech centered around the joys of family, the virtue of hard work, and giving others the respect they deserve, no matter their background or ethnicity. If only The Donald would listen to her advice...

Turns out the advice actually came from a speech that Michelle Obama gave the Democratic Convention in 2008, and it had parts plagiarized line by line. The cable news networks began having a field day, wondering who wrote the speech for Melania, who had said that she mostly wrote it herself, and would the Trump organization fire the writer or not?

The response has been that hey, both Melania and Michelle must have the same values, there's nothing more to see here, and we are going to move on... Which means, translated into real life, that Melania is dumber than we thought, and not much at giving speeches, and she did the cribbing herself, enough to make it legally plagiarism, and please don't let her bring down Donald's campaign, we will promise to keep her out of sight from now on... Again, a pundit said at the very least, Michelle should be given a writer's fee...

Everyone got up and left the convention hall, leaving the last few speakers to give their speeches to a much emptied house, just like speaking in Congress. For those who are more liberal leaning the convention is proving a wonderful catharsis, I can hear my sister yelling at her tv from upstairs in several spots during the night, and I know the rest of the convention will be more of the same, including the embarrassing screw-ups. Tonight will showcase speeches by former rivals of The Donald, including Ben Carson, Chris Christy, and Ted Cruz, oh what could go wrong? If you hear someone laughing like a maniac, it will be me...







Saturday, July 16, 2016

I Will Miss Barack Obama



" All of us, we make mistakes. And at times we are lost. And as we get older, we learn we don't always have control of things - not even a president does. But we do have control over how we respond to the world. We do have control over how we treat one another. "    
                                                                                                                                - Barack Obama



I have to confess that I am going to miss Barack Obama as our president very much. I wish there was a way that he could stay and just give speeches on a regular basis, and not always when there is a tragedy. He has shown such class, and loving family man, and still has a sense of humor after eight years of Republican abuse that has been raised to a level we have never seen before openly in public.

We have learned that white crackers like Mitch McConnell don't like taking orders from a black man, and their willingness to go to incredible lengths to make sure that nothing of Obama's agenda gets done, that nothing that he has done will stay, and none of his future plans ever bear fruition. I believe that this white backlash has opened up the wound between the black communities and white cops. Cell phones have helped record the killing of innocent men by fearful and racist cops, who are then protected by the system and they never have to take responsibility for their actions beyond the court of public opinion.

Or we can blame how scary black men are to old white guys because of the fake gangster mentality fostered by rap music, though I remember being quite shocked when I first heard the song Cop Killer while driving through Oakland around midnight, it gave me chills...

Whatever bullshit theory we may have, we haven't been able to sit down at some imaginary table and begin to talk things out. Maybe Obama could become a czar of race relations, or at least do some stand-up comedy once a month and tell sly jokes like he has done each year at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I will miss that. Even more, I will miss how eloquent his speeches are, how they always speak to the truth of the matter, and like a good preacher and a good politician should, inspire us to do better.

He is such a good person that I get mad whenever some conservative with a stick up their butt disses him on the news shows, spouting made up lies that have previously been debunked but they have to say it, and if they say it long enough and loud enough, then maybe people will believe it's true, just like how they try to pin the fiasco at Benghazi, Libya on Hillary Clinton. I wish that he could have accomplished more, and not have had a presidential kill list for drone strikes...


Well, I've rambled on and have not even touched on the events I wanted to comment on. Next post, I guess... Right now I have to go and take a shower and get ready for my cat, who likes to curl up on my lap every afternoon for his nap, and it becomes my nap time, too... This Spring he has been bringing in a bumper crop of field mice and baby bunnies, proudly displaying their bodies laid out on the front lawn, terrifying the neighborhood children...




Tuesday, July 12, 2016

It's All Obama's Fault




Don't blame it on the sunshine
Don't blame it on the moonlight
Don't blame it on good time
Blame it on Obama...


If we were to listen to folks like the head of the national police association or crazy Rudy Giuliani, who tells us that the real problem that has provoked the recent police violence, is that Barack Obama is waging a war against cops, or that it's all the fault of Black Lives Matter. This, of course, is not true and reflects more on the racist paranoia of the person making the statement. But, still, it's a form of trickle-down economics, the policies of the top negro filtering down to the angry streets of Ferguson, Dallas, and Baton Rouge.

But it has been a fact that  public emphasis on the treatment of black people has happened more in the media since Obama took office, coupled with the amount of cell phone videos showing police beating up, shooting and killing, and trying to cover up their actions, resulting in the loss of black lives. Obama himself, has tried to balance along the tightrope, often sounding like the only voice of reason in the NRA wilderness...

Our society is in turmoil and a crossroads: either we find solutions to our broken systems like criminal justice, or we can watch as we sink deeper into chaos and violence, without any group like ISIS lifting a finger. One beginning is to emulate the new Canadian prime minister, who is going to release from prison every person convicted on marijuana possession... Another is to look at our communities and find a way to make them more accepting, to rebuild the dying ones and make us all thrive. For example, if we ruled that all buildings are not to exceed 10 stories and every building and house should have solar panels, use Bill Gates's money on slums along the west coast, the Koch brothers funds for the Midwest, and a coalition of GOP  donors on the eastern seaboard, we could make a dent in renewal...

I grew up in the city of Torrance, Calif, which for many years prided itself on being lily-white. Any black man driving through the city after 10 pm would be stopped by the cops and hassled. The police department was all white, even after the Rodney King beating put emphasis on more diverse hiring practises. There was an incident where a local LA television news reporter, who was black, went inside the Torrance police department to inquire about their being one of the last two all-white departments in the state of California, along with Simi Valley, and in front of the camera, the officer manning the desk jumped over it and started beating up the reporter... A few weeks earlier I had a friend beaten up the same way, and the chief ignored our complaints afterward... one good thing that resulted was the installation of a large plexiglas barrier along the reception counter. Most people feel it's for the officer's safety, but I point out on every visit that just the opposite is true, and get a stink-eye from some overweight officer with a bad attitude every time...

Just like the videotaping of the Rodney King beating, so too the combination of cops killing innocent black men, compounded by the heroic action of cops in Dallas when they were under attack by a black sniper last week will give us determination to actively change our policing methods and interactions with the community. Ironically, the Dallas police department has a reputation as being one of the best in this area, and could give lessons to places like Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, Florida, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Kansas for a start...

I'm in my 60's, and can count on one hand the bad interactions I've had in my life with the police. But if you asked every black man my age, they can give you lots of stories of bad encounters, both for themselves and every male member of their family. It really is up to the younger folks to keep protesting and finding ways to publicly embarrass the political leaders who ignore the problems. No little girl should have to sit in the back of a car watching her daddy get shot because the officer was badly trained and worked himself up into a hysterical mode of behavior... This really has to stop...



Saturday, July 9, 2016

I Got the Weary Sniper Blues




So, we've concluded the Benghazi hearings and the email server investigations, which the conservatives are still trying to flog back into life, groups like Judicial Watch are trying to file civil lawsuits against Hillary. They have found a puppet judge at the federal level who is setting a hearing to see if there's any cause to bring her in for another deposition, set right before the Democratic Convention, oh, what a coincidence...


I'm emotionally exhausted after watching the videos of the two innocent black men being shot and killed by police, then the retaliation shootings in Dallas, which ironically has one of the best police forces in the country. The comedian Larry Wilmore commented that it's a good thing that cell phones have cameras, because otherwise, there'd be no public record of these actions, just the victim's family filing wrongful death reports that go ignored...

One of the arguments going around is if you are a black man living in a state that allows concealed carry laws, what's the next step if you are just going to be shot by the police if you do carry a gun for your protection? It's obvious that a lot of police officers should not have become a cop in the first place, they are emotionally unfit for the stress of the job, time for an early retirement for these guys...

Things could be worse, we could be living in Kenya, with one of the most brutal and corrupt police forces in the city of Nairobi... It is a tradition that goes back to colonial times, when the British engaged in torture, concentration camps, and forced disappearances. Wait, aren't a lot of the brutal regimes in the world ex- British colonies? Let's talk about sadists being drawn to the military service... This also explains why countries like Egypt let the CIA set up sites where they could torture prisoners in semi-secret...

Back to the US... Because one video of a shooting was broadcast in real time on Facebook Live, it has made Facebook re-examine their posting policies, and I'll be that six months from now, a video like that, which probably saved the lives of a woman and her daughter ( the police officer was pretty shaky and hysterical, it looked like he was debating whether to leave witnesses or not ), will not be allowed and a filter to keep it from airing will be installed...

There already have been a few copycat shootings at police officers within 48 hours of the Dallas sniper shooting that killed police working at a street protest, mostly in southern states with a long history of racist intolerance: Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri. Pundits have said that it was the first time that a robot was used to deliver a bomb and then detonate it to kill the sniper. Usually these robots have been used for roadside bombs in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and now that our domestic police have used one, can the age of police drones and robocops be far off... Time to dust off those old comic books to see the future...

Hopefully, the violence will cool down in time for the political conventions, where another kind of warfare will be waged, and I can enjoy good old stories about sexual harassment in the Fox workplace, care of that bloated pig of a man, Roger Ailes...



Thursday, July 7, 2016

Long, Hot Suicide Summer, Where Are The Pink Drinks?



This has been an intense week, too much death and destruction everywhere, all fingers pointing back to the Islamic State. ( They keep shortening their name, next I expect it to be further shortened to the Isla St, connoting some sort of beachy weather in Paradise, for all those martyrs and those raisin eaters... ) Some pundits are saying that because ISIL is losing land that it had previously stolen, it is flaming out with as much destruction as it can, there being too many people still volunteering to become suicide bombers. Or maybe they have become rabid under too much heat in the desert, much the way Pol Pot went crazy living in the jungle, eating those leaves and bugs...

  • Saudi Arabia had its share of suicide bombers, in a twist of the phrase what goes around comes around... All of those years promoting Wahabism and death to America from Pakistan to the Bin Laden cave headquarters in Afghanistan is now coming back to bite the Kingdom in the bum. The country is seen as too soft and protective of those cults who are not extremist Sunnis...

  • Instead of spending all of that money and time investigating Benghazi and trying to pin it all on Hillary Clinton, we should have spent the money on rebuilding the infrastructure in Libya and sending peacekeepers to facilitate hospitals and schools. Instead, Libya is descending into chaos and up for grabs to the strongest group around. Then it will be time for another round of congressional hearings...

  • Just like we should have spent time and money in Iraq, rebuilding the infrastructure that we had just bombed, instead of bribing officials and prohibiting members of the Baath Party from participating in the government, military, and police. Paul Bremer was the worst, let's begin by putting him on trial, then George Bush and Tony Blair... If nothing else, we should have sent Mr. Bush over to become a permanent resident of Baghdad. It's just as hot in Dallas now, so he should feel comfortable, and he can pal around with whatever crappy prime minister is there and telling him what a heckova job he's doing...

  • Smugglers who helped refugees leave North Africa and the Middle East are now making money smuggling those refugees back into their home countries...


I cannot believe that Brazil is going on with the Olympics in the failed police state of Rio de Janeiro... They are in the middle of a drug war, with innocent civilians taking the brunt of bullets from both sides, though the police have killed about four times as many as have the cartels... The Olympic venues are no where near completion, and there aren't any signs on buses and trains to help visitors in getting to them... Local Rio police have been on strike because of back wages that have not been paid, and finally, the elephant in the room: the Zika virus... This is too tragic because Brazil is a beautiful, vibrant country, the part that isn't destroying the Amazon Rainforest.



For me the Summer will soon come to a head with the Republican Convention in Cleveland, oh what
a wonderful clusterfuck it will be. My neighbors and local politicians keep saying that if only Donald Trump would keep faith with basic conservative principals more, they could support him... But, my dear neighbor, it's those basic conservative values, which seemed so innocent and right back in the 1950's, are what is strangling the GOP and about to sink the whole Party below the waves. Our social memes change about every ten years, and if you are not re-evaluating your core beliefs to change with the times, then you become a stagnant stick in the mud who is laughed at by your grandchildren... Just look at John McCain and Jeff Sessions...

They are trying to deflect the attention away from the emperor by having James Comey tear into Hillary's email servers, another old subject that had been laid to rest. I just want to know how many times our government servers were hacked into during the time frame that Hillary used her own. Comey said it was possible hers were hacked, I know for a fact there were at least twenty good hacks into our government servers from the Chinese alone...


Monday, July 4, 2016

Happy 4th of July, Myth American Violence


" You know, they have a plan for 30 or 35 years, we don't even have a five year plan..."
                                                                                                                               - John Kerry

Places where there have been escalating jihadist violence this past month: Paris, San Bernardino, Orlando, Brussels, Kabul, Istanbul, Baghdad, and Dakar, Bangladesh. Experts say that this is only the beginning; as the noose tightens on the ever-shrinking lands that ISIS had taken over, more insistent and shrill the call to wage random jihad is going to be, making this a long, hot, incredibly violent summer.

Foreigners who came and trained with ISIS a few years ago have gone back home to form sleeper cells or live quiet lives until they are called to jihad. In the case of a couple of American killers there is a connection with Saudi Arabia, whose Wahabi sponsored schools and mosques have set the whole tone of modern jihadism.

As an aside, I saw an interview with a Middle Eastern scholar, and she said that the notion that a jihadist will receive 72 virgins is a misinterpretation of the Koran. To a bunch of nomadic desert
tribes, a description of heaven as a green, lush place with flowing water and sweet desserts is an incentive to follow the religious precepts of the day. The original Arabic word meant raisins, not virgins, so the person who waged jihad would get a sweet dessert along with a lush afterlife... Only some leering patriarchic male would twist it into having sex with underage girls, pretty perverse, guys... The next impossible task, is trying to update fairy tales like this and bring it into the light of the present day.

Roy Scranton has a good essay in last Sunday's New York Times, on the myths we tell ourselves about violence and war, variations that every country with an army tells themselves: that going to war has a power to unify or enlighten. Or, as the historian Richard Slotkin calls it, "the myth of regeneration through violence." We see it in Star Wars to every Western ever made, and is what we tell ourselves every time we put boots on the ground in some foreign country. We are protecting and promoting democracy, and defending our country and way of life, and whatever other myths we can cram into naive, impressionable, eighteen-year-old minds.

Roy goes on to say: " The real gap is between the fantasy of American heroism and the reality of what the American military does, between the myth of violence and the truth of war. The real gap is between our subconscious belief that righteous violence can redeem us, even ennoble us, and the chastening truth that violence debases and corrupts."

Every 4th of July I think of an old friend, Charlie Gault, who served as a Marine in Vietnam. One time he and some friends were having a mellow celebration, smoking and drinking some beers, when someone on the street set off a string of firecrackers. Charlie immediately curled up into a fetal ball, shivering and rocking, in a lot of distress. This lasted a good twenty minutes until we could gently talk him down and find a shaky sense of relaxation. He told us that the firecrackers triggered a memory when he was in a machine-gunner's nest on top of a hill, when his group was over-run by the Vietcong. People were dying all around him, including the guy next to him in the nest. Very few survived, and he felt a lot of guilt because he was one of the few who did survive... Going out later to watch fireworks became very surrealistic, bringing up a swirl of emotions inside of myself that I still haven't been able to shake off after 40 some-odd years.

So, Happy Birthday America, enjoy your Myth America, drinking American beer while watching on your American television sets. I'll be having a quieter version of the holiday, indulging in some ribs and watermelon for my sweet dessert...









Monday, June 27, 2016

British Sterling Took a Pounding, The CIA's Mid-Eastern Arms Rabbit Hole



"Dear Brits: We Americans want to congratulate you on your vote to exit the modern world. Now that your prime minister is resigning, you need a brave new leader who can Make Britain Great Again (circa 1775?)

We have just the man for you: He will round up all those pesky immigrants, he'll negotiate unbelievably good deals with those trading partners you just shoved off, and in a pinch he'll rebuild Hadrian's Wall.

Quite frankly, we would appreciate it if you would take him off our hands. You're welcome to Donald Trump!"
                                                                                                                     - Sebastian Kuhn


Stories were reported of folks going home after voting and Googling to find out what the EU was... Voting seemed split by a generational divide, with the older folks voting to leave, and the younger ones complaining that now they'd have to give up espresso for milky tea and eat weird food like spotted dick and other historical bad choices... Guess we can't let grandma out unattended anymore...

And soon it may be just lonely ol' Britain instead of the United Kingdom. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not want to leave the EU, and may vote again on whether to leave the UK, setting the stage once again for hostilities between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, one dominated by Catholicism the other by the Anglican Church... Jeez, it's bad enough I can't go into an Irish bar without getting into an argument or witnessing one, just because I'm Welsh and we could give a fuck about the Irish ( I actually said this in a bar in San Francisco and lived to tell the tale...). Back to Llareggub for me...

The most costly repercussion of the Brexit vote will be on the City of London, the financial hub inside London town, and has become a rival to New York and Tokyo. We may see an exit of lizard people who no longer have the camouflage of respectability to cloak themselves and have to migrate to Germany or Brussels... Most of the dumping of stock that sent the pound down, happened overnight in Hong Kong and Tokyo.





"May all join in striving to ensure that whenever conflicts emerge between nations, dialogue, the endearing and authentic quest of peace, cooperation between states and the constant commitment of international organizations will always prevail."
                                                                                                                              - Pope Francis




So where does ISIS and other hostile groups get their guns? Yeah, some were captured, some were stolen, and the rest was provided by the good ol' USA, under the care of the CIA...

Over the past few years the CIA has been trying to train anti-ISIS troops in the Kingdom of Jordan. They also have been buying up lots of rifles made in Bulgaria, rocket-propelled grenades ( you didn't think these were provided by jihadist sympathizers did you? ), ammo from America and pistols from everywhere. They would fly this stuff into Jordan, where the Jordanian security service, originally created by the USA, would then distribute the armory to our good rebel groups. Or so we were told...

Seems members of the Jordanian security service like to buy bling and luxury goods as much as the Russians do, and have taken much of the guns and sold them on Beirut's black market, where you literally can buy anything, from iphones to SUV's... Of course, both the CIA and Jordan say this doesn't happen, but the serial numbers off of some rifles used in ISIS attacks were traced back to this program. Jordan insists that they track all weapons that pass through their hands but refused to input the serial numbers of the rifles in question to their database...

If the US would stop providing guns and stop bombing civilians, most of these radical conflicts would dry up and go away. But as long as we keep providing more fuel to the fire, these conflicts will rise and burn...






Friday, June 24, 2016

Time For The Queen To Get A Job, WHO is Zika Calling?




Well, it's official, Britain has voted to leave the European Union. Now perhaps the newspapers will stop using that stupid phrase, "Brexit." It may not happen for a few years, as nobody has a plan what to do next; there could be another vote on a "Nexit" ... to untangle themselves from 27 other countries...

Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, resigned...

The British stock market has taken a dive... world markets are falling faster than I can type...


Donald Trump just happened to be in Scotland, because his Turnberry golf course is in financial trouble, and he had to go in person to fix it... Previously, like last week, Donald didn't know what "Brexit" was, responding to a question about it with a "huh?" before quickly gaining his legendary wits and then giving a more proper response of "yeah..."

So he gave a press conference that sounded like an infomercial for his golf course, with a bagpipe player behind him, and staff members wearing hats that said Make Turnberry Great Again. The Washington Post described it:

“I think it’s a great thing that happened," Trump told reporters shortly after his helicopter landed at Trump Turnberry. “People are angry, all over the world. People, they’re angry.”

“When the pound goes down, more people are coming to Turnberry, frankly. For traveling and for other things, I think it very well could turn out to be a positive.”

He also suggested that running a golf course was comparable to running a nation: “You’ll be amazed how similar it is. It’s a place that has to be fixed.”

Donald also avoided answering any questions if Scotland should stay a part of Great Britain, or vote again to leave...





If I were an Evangelical, I certainly would believe that mankind's days on earth will come to an end soon. It's getting too hot, we are running out of sand for concrete, running out of water for farming and drinking, too many people are homeless and it's going to get a lot worse... and to top it all off, the World Health Organization says go ahead, go to Brazil for the Summer Olympics... And if it causes a world-wide outbreak of the untreatable Zika virus, with babies born deformed, don't blame us...