The Next UN - American, Brad Thor Promotes Assassination

" The UN was created not to lead mankind to heaven, but in order to save humanity from hell."
                                                                                                                         - Dag Hammarskjold


Hello, I Must Be Going...

Next year the UN will have to choose a new Secretary General, as Ban Ki-Moon's tenure will come to an end. So, another job possibility for Bill Clinton, and it will keep him away from Washington a lot... But, times have been one going from world crisis to world crisis, without leaving any time to take a deep breath.

One of the things the UN likes to do is make lists. One list comprises armies that indiscriminately kills women and children. The Saudi led coalition army was put on this list last week for the way they battled the Houthi tribe in Yemen. This displeased the House of Saud, and they told the UN that either they get taken off the list, or they would withdraw financial support for sponsored humanitarian aid in Palestine, Syria, and South Sudan.

Bullshit like this happens all of the time. Previously, the Israeli Defense Force and Hamas were about to be criticized for their killing of innocent women and children during their two recent military campaigns, but Israel and the US put pressure not to release the report, but the gist could be leaked anonymously to the newspapers... He also has been pressured by the Russians, Chinese, and various members of the European Union.

It doesn't really matter how many candidates vie for the position of secretary general, since the ones doing the actual choosing are the 5 members of the Security Council, and you can be sure that they will choose a lap-dog, not someone who is willing to speak their mind.



Back In the USA...

• Radio show host Glen Beck was suspended from Sirius XM's Patriot Channel for a week. He was interviewing jingoistic author Brad Thor. Brad advocated that it would be a good thing if someone assassinated Donald Trump, because he is such a danger to our country. The radio channel felt that Mr. Beck didn't jump down Brad's throat and disavow his statements, hence the censure...

• The incoming Republican Party Chairman for Travis County, Texas is actually a foul-mouthed libertarian, who raised money to get on the ballot unopposed. He has vowed to use his position to influence the promotion of "big titties!" The Republican Committee met to limit the duties that he will have to perform, so that he will merely become a figurehead for them huge tata's...

On To The Political Conventions!

Hillary Clinton made history by becoming the first woman presidential candidate, beating poor old Bernie Sanders by a healthy margin. The remaining question is what will Bernie do now? He could let his frustration turn into bitterness and try to destroy the process at the convention, but he doesn't have the clout to get the changes he really wants... to swing the process in his favor. His best bet is to figure out how to get the majority of his supporters to get out and vote for Hillary, because the primary voter turnout this year was lower than 2008. My primary argument against Bernie is that he has spent all of those years in the Senate and accomplished very little beyond rhetoric. He was chairman of the Veteran's Affairs committee and didn't do anything to improve their situations until public embarrassment forced the committee into simulated action, leaving the problems at the VA hospitals the same, if not worse...

For Hillary, she needs to keep on giving well thought out speeches like the last two, and to avoid doing something stupid that the right wing crazies can go nuts over. They already have tried at least nine times with Benghazi investigations, and the current committee is waiting until after the conventions to publish their report or at least try to stir up some dust. The email server scandal is much ado over nothing, but her adversaries will try to get her indicted over it before the general election.

The other big question is who will she pick to be her running mate? The Washington Post has collected 27 potential candidates, ranging from Joe Biden to Elizabeth Warren. Personally, I'd like to see either Al Franken or John Hickenlooper, the governor of Colorado, to be the next elevated. The creepy nominee would be her husband, Bill Clinton, though he would do an excellent job. But I'll bet she makes him ambassador to the United Nations instead...

The funny part about the Republican primaries was watching who was still on the ballot against Donald Trump, either John Kasich or Ted Cruz. Though Donald was running virtually unopposed, I kept waiting to see if he was going to lose the vote in the last nine primary states, even better if it was to some write-in vote, like Donald Duck... Donald's job, which he will ignore, is to keep a lower profile until the convention, and learn how to retract a statement with an apology instead of doubling down and making things worse. He is driving the Republican establishment nuts, and it is entertaining watching how each strategy they come up with to harm Donald, just bounce back at them. The smarter strategy is what the Democrats are doing now, showing how the Emperor has no clothes, or billions of dollars, or donated to charities like veteran's groups, unless he is publically embarrassed to do so. The ticket for the season will be the Republican convention, to further watch the Grand Old Party implode.

Who will Donald Trump pick as his running mate? Oh, the list of former adversaries who will lick his boots is a long one, with the most colorful choice would be Sarah Palin again. What a fucking train-wreck that would be... But he will probably reward the smarmy Jeff Sessions for all of the behind the scenes hard work he has done. The creepy choice is his own daughter, Ivanka Trump, who is a botox queen and probably still registered as a Democrat. He really needs someone who will run the day to day affairs, while he concentrates on the big, blustery speeches he likes so much, a presidency honed by reality television...

So, there we have it. Hillary and Bill Clinton, running against Donald and Ivanka Trump, showing just how nepotistic politics has become!!!

Hillary's Speech on Trump's Foreign Policy

"If Donald Trump were to be elected president... the America of George W. Bush would seem like a land of logic and reason in retrospect." - Der Spiegal


The crazier Donald Trump sounds, the more fearful and neurotic Europe, and Germany in particular, are of him. This last week has had The Donald ranting against Jeff Bezos, the press, a federal judge, reporters from the Washington Post, reporters in general, and the validity of a law-suite against Trump University claiming fraud...


To top off his very bad, awful week, Hillary Clinton diagnosed Donald Trump's foreign policy experience and decisions.Here are some of the quotes from Hillary Clinton's recent speech in California, where she dinged Donald Trump. Many people are calling this a turning point for Ms Clinton... I got these from CNN's Politics web page:

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

"He's not just unprepared -- he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility."

"This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes because it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin."

"We cannot put the safety of our children and grandchildren in Donald Trump's hands. We cannot let him roll the dice with America."

"He has no ideas on education. No ideas on innovation. He has lots of ideas about who to blame but no clue about what to do."

"He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,"

"I will leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his attraction to tyrants"

"Imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life-or-death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he's angry, but America's entire arsenal, do we want him making those calls -- someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism? Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?"

Donald's response has only to call her performance pathetic. At one rally he complained that he had been Trumped!!!

The Panama Papers, and the Iranian Kaaba Blues

"The Revolution Will be Digitized" - John Doe

Panama Papers at the ICIJ

Since the release of the Panama Papers, the repercussions have rippled out around the globe. Some countries are chasing down their citizens that were revealed to have secret accounts in the Cayman Island banks and shell corporations listed in the papers. The best source for this is at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists website, and I have provided the link above. The whole database is supposed to be available, but all I could find I were articles. There are over 370 reporters in 79 countries who are members and they all participated in writing up stories based on the database.

In the immediate aftermath, Iceland's prime minister had stepped down, so had a Spanish government minister. It also revealed that several of Vladimir Putin's friends had transferred over $2 billion through offshore companies, and he tried to bluff it out by saying that it is all a plot by the United States to smear the good name of his country. (oh, I can't wait for the exchanges between Putin and Donald Trump...). The scams ran the gamut, from mining contracts in Sierra Leone, to the European soccer associations, to the international art market with the recent multi-million dollars sales of paintings and sculptures. Here in the US, we have three states, Delaware, Wyoming, and Nevada that allow the registration of fake companies with hidden ownership, and to not pay state taxes. There is talk in Washington to change that and fix the loopholes, but we all know that if our billionaires can finance and affect national politics, there is no way that they will allow their secret stashes to see the light of day...

The scary part is the 11 million documents represent about 5% of the shell corporations created, and finally, the rest of the money laundering scams may be revealed. Or not... From a poor person's perspective, it would be nice to see every billionaire and politician's dirty laundry, but we can't even get Donald Trump to release his income tax returns...


"Too much time has been lost, and it is now too late to organize the pilgrimage"

In religious news, Iran has forbidden its citizens from traveling to Saudi Arabia for this year's pilgrimage to Mecca. Last year there were stampedes, where, curiously, mostly Iranians died. Saudi officials admitted to 700 deaths, while Iranian officials claimed there were over 4,500. The two governments have been sniping at each other ever since, and an agreement guaranteeing pilgrim's safety this year, fell through. Since last Saturday, several websites owned by Iranian agencies have been hacked, with indications pointing back to Saudi originations.

The two countries have been on opposing sides in the Syrian conflict, and represent the age-old division between Sunnis and Shiites. To any non-Muslim studying their history, this division seems silly and petty, but it has taken on epic proportions that will never be resolved either peacefully or violently...

While I'm at it, I may as well commit total blasphemy: I still don't see the logical link between a piece of meteorite from outer space and how it relates to the Muslim religion. It seems to be more of a link to our superstitious past than something intrinsically holy. What makes it a religious object is that millions of people over time have touched it with reverence, and that repeated reverence creates a blessing... Wikipedia describes the Kaaba Stone as: "The Black Stone of Mecca, or Kaaba Stone, is a Muslim relic, which according to Islamic tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve. It is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient sacred stone building towards which Muslims pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia."

I'm all for pilgrimages to shrines and holy sites, many provide a sense of peace that you cannot find in the real world, the ones that haven't been destroyed by ISIS and the Chinese...

Hillary's Emails and Supervirus

Since I started up my blog again, I've been trying to clean up my links to other sites and add new ones. It's sad to find out how many blogs that were active two years ago are no longer around. Of course, hardly anyone still reads blogs that don't have video or make salacious claims like Gawker. I guess that I will start experimenting with video, but I am hesitant to use things made by other people, except for the wonderful photos found on the internet...


"It demonstrates an arrogant autocracy that is breathtaking." - Tom Krebsbach

Let's begin with the brouhaha brought up over Hillary's email server, and the latest report issued by the State Department's inspector general. Conservatives are going apeshit over this, claiming it proves that she is not fit to be president, because of her flouting of the rules and lack of transparency. I don't get the argument, except that they get to use real descriptive phrase like the quote above. I don't recall any past president that was totally transparent, the closest has been Barack Obama, with his obsession with drones and deportation of immigrants... Oh yeah, then there is Zelig and the Invisible Man, but neither are interested in politics.

The rules that are in place now concerning email servers were put in place after Hillary left the State Department. At the time, government computer systems were woefully outdated and had major flaws. Plus, there was no guarantee of security because every amateur hacker and government spy agencies in the world were trying to hack into the US government, many met with success... I certainly would not want to trust a government server with my private email, but, yeah, she should have worked with the State Department security wonks to come up with a solution that made everyone happy. Her big mistake was not including them, making them become petty and vindictive...

The inspector general at the time is the person responsible for informing the new Secretary of State what the current rules are, and it's obvious that he did not do his duty. That the current report is issued by the inspector general's office claiming their innocence in all of this doesn't pass the smell test.

In looking at the candidate's experience, we have Bernie Sanders, who has been a professional politician  all of his life, and Donald Trump, who has never been elected or worked for anyone besides himself. Hillary has been active in state politics, was a lawyer, was wife to a US  president, was elected as a state senator, worked as the US Secretary of State, and has traveled many more miles around the globe working for our country's interests that either of the other two guys. I find areas where I totally disagree with her policies, but she does take a more incremental and pragmatic approach to change. I may not like that, but it better suites the needs of our country. To paraphrase the words of that great philosopher, M Jagger: "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might get what you need..."



Oh, god, politics may not matter, now that a virus has been discovered that is impervious to all antibiotics. There is no cure. We are doomed... It reminds me of the beginning to Tom  Robbin's book, Another Roadside Attraction, where he muses that Armageddon will be fought by the two things that we fail to eradicate: cockroaches and the venereal disease virus. Well, he got the virus part right, and cockroaches can be killed by a simple solution of boric acid, so what will be the next contender in our age of comic book villains and heroes???

"It's None of Your Business"

"The entire mythology of the N.R.A. and its supporters is based on the idea that if a person is armed, he or she will be capable of shooting accurately. That the big problem is lack of gun availability, not gun owners who are sloppy, inept and occasionally psychotic." - Gail Collins


Almost every comedian and late night host in America is hoping that Donald Trump wins the presidential election because that means at least four years of solid satirical material... Just about every time he opens his blustery mouth some gem pops out that, when it is fact-checked, turns out to be wrong.

Yesterday he was talking before the NRA, bragging that he has a gun permit, and if anyone tried to assault him, boy, would they get a big surprise. Last summer, when he was asked by an NBC news correspondent if he ever practiced shooting that gun, he responded: "It's none of your business."

Over the past few months, he has been asked when he is going to finally release his tax returns, he has  answered that he can't because he is being audited. When an official from the IRS pointed out that an audit does not prevent someone from sharing their returns, The Donald said that it is none of our business... What deep, dark secrets could they possibly reveal? That he is not as rich as he boasts he is? We already know that. That he doesn't give much money to charities like he boasts he does? We already assumed that. Oh, what could the answer be?

The last super-rich businessman to run for president, Mit Romney, also had problems and dragged his feet in releasing his returns. Even The Bern hasn't released his. By contrast, both of the Clintons have released theirs ever since the 1970's...




And, in other gun related news: "George Zimmerman said he has sold the gun he used to kill unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 for $250,000, television stations in Orlando and Las Vegas reported on Friday.

His offer to sell the Kel-Tec PF9 9mm handgun on UnitedGunGroup.com drew praise from gun rights supporters and scorn from critics who accused him of seeking to profit from the 17-year-old's death.

On his own website that day, Zimmerman said the auction had "raised funds for several worthy causes." He has said he would use proceeds to counter violence against law enforcement officers by the group Black Lives Matter and to fight Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's "anti-firearm rhetoric."

What a bunch of bullshit, the marksmanship of a true amateur. George, we know you never intended to share your tacky profits, and I hope you don't shoot another kid the next time you feel the need to be in the news...

Trump's Strategy Against Hillary

"It's hard to trust someone until you know them, and it is hard to know someone until you meet them." - Lamar Alexander

"I met him for 30 seconds in 2012." - Paul Ryan

As The Donald tries to make friends with political lifers and staunch conservatives, his campaign strategists have decided that he should continue the negative attacks on Hillary Clinton. If you keep repeating lies long enough a portion of the public will gobble it up like Big Macs and fries, and swear that it was a nutritious meal...

According to Patrick Healy in the New York Times, during the presidential debates this fall, Mr Trump will try to throw her husband's infidelities in her face to humiliate her, saying that she enabled him by staying with him (this is a strategy that can easily backfire because Donald has had his share of extra-marital affairs), she is responsible for the security lapses at Benghazi, Libya, and finally, that she has been a corrupt politician all along.

These debates could easily devolve into a nasty game of He Said/She Said that Donald's campaign is hoping the results will lower Hillary's favorable ratings in the innumerable polls. I think her best strategy for this is to assume the role of a mother dealing with her out of control son. It's clear that Donald never had the parental supervision to set boundaries when he was a child, so she should come to the first debate prepared with a few props.

Each time that Donald utters one of his nasty comments or lies, she should reach into her lectern and pull out a bar of soap, walk over to Donald and place it on his lectern, with the admonishment that he is going to wash his mouth out with soap until he learns to behave better... It's not at the level that Elizabeth Warren attacked Donald and made him back down, but it might be just as effective.

Then again, I am relishing the Twitter war that could emerge the first time Donald calls Vladimir Putin a loser, who looks better with his shirt on...