Is the United States Heading Toward a Race War?

There has been a bad retaliation shooting incident in Dallas.  It occurred around nine o clock last night.  There was this Black sniper who gunned down five Dallas police officers and wounded six more.  The streets were a regular shooting gallery.  A Black Lives Matters protest was going on at the time and Black people were running for cover when the bullets flew.  This shooter, who may have had assistants, was a regular Rambo and they couldn’t seem to kill him.  The stand-off seemed to go on for hours.  Then he was in this underground garage and knowing they couldn’t get him with bullets they planted a bomb in the garage and killed him that way.  Paul Ryan's response was to pull an anti-gun bill at the last minute that had been scheduled for today.  The President made another speech and campaign activities have been suspended.  Except Congressman Joe Walsh apparently made a threat against the President.  I just hope Donald Trump doesn’t make any statements because he will make it worse.  It’s like we have a full fledged race war on our hands now after the two shooting incidents of the previous two days.  It's strengthens the argument that we must militarize the police department even up to using bombs on suspects.  We all need to pray for peace.  Because it doesn’t take much imagination to see how we could evolve into some locked down police state no matter whether it’s Donald or Hillary who wins.  This Black guy is deranged and when unstable individuals hear bad news they act in disturbing ways.  It’s like evil is a force out there with a will of its own and it’s just like it’s looking for a human instrument to work out its evil intents.   But the republicans don’t want to have hearings on gun control legislation, but instead want to investigate John Lewis and the other demonstrators who participated in that ‘sit in” a couple of weeks ago. And the thing is they’ll be going on another long vacation in a few weeks.  We have one week to go before the Republican convention and two weeks before the Democratic one.  One wonders to what extent “Law and Order” speeches will dominate both weeks.  We all need to pray for sanity and calm. 

The ABC network news was a little biased in the way they edited the FBI chief’s remarks to congress yesterday.  I watched a big chunk of it.  They picked the most resolute remarks of the FBI chief saying Hillary was not guilty, but failed to include scenes where Republican congressmen dismantled the FBI chief’s arguments by pointing out case after case where Hillary either lied or concealed her actions and did things which were expressly forbidden under the law.  If they ever decided that people exercising gross negligence weren’t really guilty because they lacked “specific intent” we’d have to let a lot of people out of jail.  Like I say if you get drunk and get in a car and kill someone in a head-on collision you had no specific intent to kill that specific driver in that particular car.  But your general intent was to have complete disregard of any safety precautions.  The trouble is- - now they want to “refer” another investigation to the FBI because Hillary lied to congress in the Bengazi hearings.  And the State Department itself is going to investigate the same E mail events.  There comes a point of diminishing returns here where going after her becomes pointless and too political.  Yes I believe the fix was in but that’s just the way things are.  Hillary is getting off Scott free and you can’t do anything about it. 

On the Rush Limbaugh program a couple of days ago Rush was saying that there is so little evidence of global warming over the past twenty years that it's non existent and- - - if anything there is evidence of global cooling since 1998.  Republicans have been camping on this 1998 year for a decade now as the all time hottest year.  So according to Rush they are going back-- not just to "climate change" but actual "Global cooling" and in the coning months you're going to hear cries of "Global Cooling" as the next big threat.  Rush says "They won't just let the status quo be but they always have to keep us agitated with Something".

Watching the news yesterday they bring up other shooting events such as a nineteen year old white guy who was gunned down by a cop in Fresno or something a month ago.  I think it’s disturbing that they conthiscate video evidence like the Chicago PD and the Burger King surveillance camera video, and in Wednesday’s case you had the Quickie Mart video where they don’t have a warrant or anything.  The Burger King video was returned with a 65 minute gap in the recording, which would have covered that suspect that was trying to run from the cops and got gunned down.  The two latest incidents you have people who were on the ground and never drew their weapons and were still shot.  In the case of Minisota the man was ordered to get his identification and while obeying the officer as his girlfriend explained he had a gun permit- - the boyfriend is shot and later dies.  The problem is you might ignore Wednesday’s and Thursday’s officer shootings of suspects, but when the other side fights back- - then you have troubles. 

 Last night I had a dream I was in Hamburg, Germany and they were getting ready to do a movie on the early days of the Beatles.  In addition to the usuals such as Stu, and Klaus Voorman and Astrid, there were two people I never heard of who were also former members of the band named Jeff and Chewy or something.  Me and Paul (my brother) were picked to play the parts of these two mystery band members, so we got in wardrobe and were hired.  In addition to our pay we got certain limited free food and all the beer we could drink.  There were signs in this giant indoor mall that had a black roof.  The thing is all the signs were in English rather than German except for the occasional odd English word.  There was the free food section and the pay for food section.  There was also some Wheel of Fortune type thing of photos of men’s and women’s faces and the wheel below this were various men’s and woman’s sex organs and you had to match the sex organ with the face.  At any rate we finished the production and it came out OK.  Then Mom and Dad came by to pick us up (?) and I’m not sure how young we were but they yelled at me for drinking beer and being in a degenerate environment. 

FBI Clears Hillary of Wrongdoing

The FBI failed to recommend any charges being filed against Hillary Clinton for what they are calling “E-gazi”.  Last week congress exhonerated Hillary on Bengazi and today the other shoe has dropped giving Hillary Clinton a much clearer horizon ahead.  FBI chief James Comee listed the many offences against the law that Hillary did and concluded that none of it rose to the level of an indictable crime.  Hillary was extremely careless and negligent in handling her E mails.  Hillary lied about only having one phone device.  She also lied saying she only had one server or one administrator.   She had at least three and when one would be decomisionned apparently the loose E mails would be scattered on the ground like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the FBI reassembled all these pieces.  Hillary’s negligence put foreign agents in danger.  Hillary also lied about never sending E mails that were classified at the time.  It so happens there were a hundred and ten such E mails that were classified as sensitive or top security at the time.  There were another two thousand E mails that were classified as classified afterwards.  Shawn Hannity covered this topic extensively over the noon hour.  Hillary has lied about so many things.  Now that she’s gotten off the charges, the banana peel is taken away from her foot, she is celebrating by campaigning with President Obama today as though nothing were ever wrong. 

I know the movie Ferenheit 911 has already been made.  I want to make my movie different with for the most part a strict dramatization of events with alias names.  For instance Rush Limbaugh will go by his old alias of Jeff Christie.  Al Gore will not be Alvin Garret.  Dick Chaney will be Chad Henderson.  What I want to do is to subdivide "Part One", which will go all the way up to early 2006 extending the time-line another sixteen months or so.  This will cover the meat of what George Bush did wrong in office.  It's almost as though this movie had been actually made in 2006.   The point is of course that it could have been, but the events discussed in this movie are still relevant and haven't been dealt with.  Go check the previous posting below this one for the rest of the content of the movie.  Here are a bunch of fresh scenes I want to incorporate.  Rush Limbaugh endorses George Bush as "the conservative candidate" even though Pat Buchannon is running against him and has better positions on trade and the economic health of the nation than does Bush.  Put someone like Me in the scene who remarks that he's not sure Bush can be a real born again Christian because he's from a rich family and they do everything for show anyhow.  And the others in the room generally agree with me.  Of course Rush has connections to the Bush Crime family.  On September 11th itself we sure want to put in the scene where the President is in Serasota Florida reading "My Pet Goat" to a second grade class.  President Bush was already informed of the first attack and brushed it off.  Then when news of the second building being hit- - he is told more explicitly "Mr President, the nation is under attack" and continues reading for another seven minutes.  I'd show all seven minutes of it.  But of course I'd interspurse it with all the scrambling around in the war room of people trying to manage the crisis.  Then I'd slip in a little rendition.  This is where a mark is kidnapped and taken to Serbia or somewhere to be tortured by US forces.  Then he's dumped out in the street in Eastern Europe somewhere and has to get back home and fears for his life if he dares tell what happened to him.  I would include lots of waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay and I'd be pretty detailed and explicit here showing it going on for minute after minute and to more than one person but a whole series of persons.  Then I'd throw in Abo Grave and the POW abuse stuff there, too.  Just for the heck of it I'd throw in Laura Schlenger's son mouthing off and having strange posters in his room.  I would also do long edits of Howard Dean's speeches- - and then repeat the yell he did on newscast after newscast to show how one thing can be blown completely out of proportion.  Then I'd show the results of the elections in Iraq and the purple thumbs.  There was one in January of 2005 and there was another in October of 2005.  I guess I'd cover Hurricane Katrina just for the hell of it to highlight George Bush's general disinterest in the subject.  Then I'd cover Justice Robert's confirmation for Chief Justice.  I have people asking him whether or not he sticks up for the "little guy" and listening to his evasive answer.  Then I'd have him field the question that yielded "I'm just here to rule on balls and strikes' and then to guild the lily I'd pose a hypothetical case that's strikingly similar to Citizen's United.  But the Justice would refuse to venture an oppinion as to "whether I'd expand the ruling to throw out bars on Corporations because this is a hypothetical case which might come before the court and I wouldn't want to prejudice myself in advance.  When asked "Well could bring up another case" and get the same stonewall.  Then there were all of the surveilance questions and new revelations on spying occur every day.   I'd cover the liberal talk show revival and how people on the left were voicing their oppinions now.  The issue would be raised of how far we should let the government go to violate our rights of privacy.  Someone would raise the thing about the Fourteen Ways we know we have moved into a fascist society.  (I have that page somewhere on this hard drive)  Finally I'd close with the 35 Articles of Impeachment that were proposed before congress and people signing petetions to get this issue brought before congress.  And then I'd go black screen and have a white vertical crawl of philosophical statements about all of this being ten years ago and the question is whether we have progressed or retrogressed on the intervening ten years.  I think we know the answer. 

I had Face the Nation on.  There were a lot of the bobsey twins Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham, ever attached at the hip.  They are concerned about Iran and Hez Bellah and the safety of Israel and want to topple Assad and want to stay in Afghanistan, presumably for another fifteen years, because the situation is deteriorating there.  There is such a thing as cutting your losses.  Then there was Rubio from last week at the harbor.  Then there was a Democrat talking about Hillary and Lynch.  (Loretta Lynch made the ironic pledge that she would abide by whatever the FBI recomended in this case.  Mitt Romney says he can’t support either Trump or Clinton and in this I sympathize with him.  Romney is a thoughtful man, and I trust his reasoning process here.  In part two of that Miniseries- - - Donald Trump goes by the name of Daryl Bone, and the opposition campaign is "You better not vote without boning up on Bone".  Mitt Romney will play a roll in "Part Two" and his alias is Allan Reynolds, the sheet metal magnate.  His deceast father we are calling Jered Reynolds though people called him Jerry but "Jered" is a book in the book of Mormon.  He has a big picture of his father he prays to every night and got the Word from his father that he had to oppose Trump because God was willing him to do it.  By the way- - did you know Tommy Smothers was the other accoustic rhythm guitar in the Plastic Ono Band "Give Piece a Chance" the original 45 recording.  I want to do closing credits on Part One using "Give Piece a Chance".  The entire thing.  

18 U.S. Code § 2232 — Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure

(a) Destruction or Removal of Property To Prevent Seizure

Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

(b) Impairment of In Rem Jurisdiction

Whoever, knowing that property is subject to the in rem jurisdiction of a United States court for purposes of civil forfeiture under Federal law, knowingly and without authority from that court, destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of impairing or defeating the court’s continuing in rem jurisdiction over the property, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

18 U.S. Code § 1512 — Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

(c) Whoever corruptly

(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or

(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

18 U.S. Code § 1519 — Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy

Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

18 U.S. Code § 2071 — Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

(a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States. As used in this subsection, the term “office” does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.

18 U.S. Code § 641 — Public money, property or records

Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use, or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof, …

Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years or both. …

18 U.S. Code § 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information …

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer —

Shall be fined not more than $10, 000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy, shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense which is the object of such conspiracy.

American Homeland - Part One

If I were to do a film or TV miniseries about George W Bush there are a whole lot of dark facts I want to include in it.  It's a pretty grim allegation that we'd have a president who was sociopathic enough to even consider using innocent American lives as pawns to advance his political carrier.  Some would say to go into the relation with his mother where he learned to be cavileer about death and not lacking in empathy.  He used cocaine to numb any personal pain and he dodged the draft.  But it wasn't because he had moral scruples about taking a human life because he used the death penalty "liberally" as Governor of Texas.  Some would call it "Texas justice".  He joked about Carla Fe Tucker's born again Christianity as a way of commuting her sentence.  He joked when the first Twin Tower was hit saying "That must really be one bad pilot".  But I am aware of the golden rule and wouldn't want to make false charges against "W" the way false charges were made about Barock Obama.  First there is the 1999 conversation with his writer saying that he would start a war in the Mideast to cash in on political capitol.  Then I’d mention that I was for Buchannon but Rush hated Buchannon perhaps because he isn’t a trade internationalist.  Then there is Jeb Bush’s remark about how we need some “Pearl Harbor” type event to turn the opinions of the American public around on the terrorism issue. This remark was actually made.  In "Part two" not covered here I explain that the initials Jeb stand for Joseph Edward Bushard Thornberry.  Barbra Bush regarded Jeb as the son with the brains anyhow and the one who "should" have been President.  We'll go into this in part two when we get there.  The trouble is that Part Two is still playing itself out and we won't know for sure the outcome till Trump gets elected President, if he does.  We have George W referring to Jeb's children as "the little brown ones" due to his wife's Mexican heritage.  Then I’d include that Bush claimed that “I would not be in the business of nation building” and he would have a humble, non interventionist foreign policy.  Then I’d mention Al Gore’s lock box on the surplus.  Every detail I’d mention would be a little knife twisting irony.  Of course the details of Florida and the stolen electoral count will be gone into at some length.  Then there is the computer system approved by Clinton and Gore for terrorism – state of the art, but Bush threw the whole system out.  Bush wanted massive tax cuts saying "We have too much money, we have to give it back to the tax payers".  Then there are the numerous warnings by aids saying an Al Qaeda attack would occur in the next month and how Bush stayed five weeks in Crawford Texas.  Then there is the overpowering of a pilot on that Boston flight with box cutters of all things.  How did they get inside the cockpit?  Then there was the order of NORAD to “stand down” from the usual alert.  Then there were all of the suspicious “maintenance closings” in the Twin Towers prior to 9 – 11 with the hint that perhaps they were installing explosives.  Then there is a strange object on the planes and a flash that hit just prior to both plans hitting their respective targets.  Then there was the endless hyping about how both buildings were in imminent danger of collapsing which could occur at any time.  It was almost like a promotional advertisement.  Then there was the enormous heat generated and shooting heavy objects out of the builsings with tremendous force.  I could go on but you see the point.  It’s not just one thing or two things.  All of the Bengazi stuff centers around the alleged order to “stand down” and not give military aid.  Shawn Hannity firmly believes this.  There was the news coverage where certain lines of inquiry or details were soon dropped almost as if on orders to drop them.  There was the notice given in advance that Building Seven had been destroyed before it even happened.  There was the absence of debris at the Pennsylvania “crash site” almost as if Flight 93 had been blown out of the sky by the government, which I wouldn’t blame them for if they did, but they just ought to admit it.  Then there was the Patriot Act passage and all of the anthrax scares of powder through the mail toward influencial democratic congressmen to scare them into voting for the Patriot Act.  If we were doing George W Bush in order we would then take up the pro and anti war debate and how Phil Donahew was kicked off the air for telling the truth.  The media and people like Chris Matthews even, were cheerleaders for the war effort.  Too bad we don't have liberals such as Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd around any more.  Britain got in on the act and the concencus was that "We have to disarm Saddam Hussein".  Of course there were Collen Powel's lies about "yellow cake uranium", which they knew wasn't true.  Then there’s the 64 thousand dollar question which goes like this.  If our entire justification for the Iraq War was “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, then why didn’t Bush rest on his “Mission Accomplished” laurals and pull the troops after Bush announced in early May of 2003 that the “Mission” had indeed been “Accomplished”?  There was a decision made to wipe out the whole Republican Guard, the Iraqi army and set up a "libertarian" paradise in Iraq".  Can we get documentation of this charge?  It's a key factor.  There was the blaming of the slow economy on the events of 9 - 11 and the repeated cry that "deficets don't matter" uttered by a whole chain of republican spokesman, one after the other.  Then there would be the early 2004 campaign where Howard Dean was leading in the polls till he let  out that “Yee Hah” war cry or whatever and Howard Dean went into a flame-out dive.  Then later in the campaign there were last minute influencial events in fall 2004.  There were the Swift Boat ads against John Kerry.  There was the Bin Laden video.  There were the constant shirts in alerts from yellow to orange or whatever.  And there was the phoney CBS memo that Dan Rather got fired over.  Then there were the exit polls showing John Kerry leading in Ohio till the voter machines did their magic and suddenly Bush carried the state.  Then it could be pointed out in the movie that they don’t use Exit polling anymore because of this very thing.  I figure if you do a dramatization you could have Bush going by the alias of Stanley Thornberry.  I formerly thought that after November 2004 you'd have a logical break point before the horrors of the second Bush administration are found out.  But I have since changed my mind and we'll edit differently.  It will still be two parts in "Part One", but the intermission will be just before the launch of "Shock and Awe" in March of 2003.  There were a lot of lavish palaces that were destroyed with bombs.  Like "Ferenheit 911" I'd show a lot of ordenary life going on in the market square and such and then "Shock and Awe" hits.  Part Two is a later period and won't begin till August of 2013 with the whole Syria and the "red line" thing, and part two takes it from there.  The tenative title of Part Two is "The Empire Endures".  And I’d also mention Obama in the second half of this movie, and I’d give him the name Barry Orenthol.  That’s Orenthol as in O J Simpson, another Oreo.

I went out and got two cups of iced tea from Rico and a pack of Graham crackers.  I talked briefly with Patty, who was wearing sun glasses.  She’s going to see her ex husband and her son and her daughter.  They are going to watch fireworks.  I talked about Judy and Chewy joined the conversation.  Then I called Paul’s number and there was no answer.  I called Mom.  It seems Paul is continuing to take off work.  He has to keep the GNLD business going for loyal customers.  Judy will be having a woman staying as caretaker.  The housekeeper came in here and she is thorough doing dusting and such every day.  Mom and I talked about cateract surgery for me some more.  I’m trying to talk myself into it.  Mom talked about her hearing doctor problems and sprays that don’t do what they’re promoted to do.  Mom gets charged for a lot of fees that amount to no services.  It wasn’t till a quarter after three when I turned on Norman Goldman.  Trump’s speech on economics upset a lot of establishment republicans.  

Trans-sexuals To Be Allowed in the Military

The secretary of defense had decreed that trans-sexuals will be openly admitted into all branches of the military aned are to be accepted.  The standards for them will be just what they are for anybody else.   Norman Goldman reminds us that Alvin Toffler died today, author of Future Shock in 1970.  It was just 1993 when Clinton first pushed through “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” on the military, where they would not ask for sexual identification on applications, but if you were caught being gay you’d get kicked out.  Of course now women are accepted in all aspects of combat, which is pretty new.   My feeling about it is that if you're going to let recruits in who are queer as a three dollar bill, then you might as well let the trans-sexuals in.   To me if they are post op and adjusted to their new gender than there should be no problem.  But if they are only just "thinking about" may I suggest some strong intervention of psychological counciling is in order.   This whole technology revolution like the abolition of cassettes,  VHS tapes, and using phones as cameras and to connect to the internet, is still domething rather futuristic to me. 

According to Shawn,  Bill Clinton may have been blackmailing Loretta Lynch in the private room on that plane where they had a suspicious half hour conference where we are supposed to believe his wife’s legal proglems never came up.  Apparently it’s come to pass that at times a batter will blackmail an umpire into giving the hitter a wider strike zone or else.  If the FBI director, who Shawn says is a good guy, gives a “referral” to Lynch that chargers should be brought against Hillary, and Lynch doesn’t follow through, this is at the least a major campaign issue for the Republicans.  Think about it.  

Apparently neither democrats nor republicans have anything in their respective platforms that condemn any of these transnational trade agreements.  So the question occurs just how much will Trump’s candidacy help down ticket republicans if his economic policies are at fundamental odds with theirs.  If Hillary doesn’t bend on this issue, and it’s unlikely she wil, then Bernie Sanders may not be too eager to fully endorse her.  According to Shawn, friends of Bernie Sanders are suing Debby Wasserman and the DNC alleging that the whole political race was rigged from the beginning and that the goal was always to do anything to make Hillary look good and air brush her faults, rather than find the best candidate to run against a Republican judging by poll numbers.

According to Washington’s blog, Brexit is up for a do-over.  You might say it was too good to be true that a major player in the European Union would just up and leave.  More than a million people have signed a petition for a do-over with the Brexit election and if as few as a hundred thousand signatures is valid, then according to the rules, Parliament must take up the debate as though what is approved in an election isn’t really binging.  Washington’s blog refers to it as “winging it”.   They are kicking around the idea that somehow such a momentus move requires a super-majority, without stating that that figure is.  Meanwhile the stock markets aren’t that concerned any more.  They consider it old news and the averages have been sharply up the past three days.  

On Tuesday Trump gave his long awaited speech on the economy.  The summary of it is that Trump gives seven steps he would take to turn the economy around quickly.  A lot of them relate to the things we progressives had wanted.  Trump said he would renegotiate NAFTA and not just a little but a lot.  And if they refused that then Trump would withdraw from NAFTA.  Often Trump would cite this or that government code.  He’s going to scuttle the Trans Pacific Partnership.   Trump plans to get tough in China as far as manipulating their currency and also stealing our roduction secrets.  He cited Washington and Alexander Hamilton and also Abraham Lincoln for the justification of high terrifs and lower income taxes and regulations.   I’m gratified to see a candidate in touch with our historic founders.   OK I just listened to the entire speech and aside from the remarks about energy and coal mining, which I take exception to, it was a really great, inspiring speech. 

The significance of the first Brexit vote is: it was the first instance in modern times when UK citizens formally expressed their opposition to what the UK’s aristocracy desire. However, the outcome of that vote is likely to be the same (though by different means) as was the outcome of the Greek referendumregarding the international aristocracy’s 2015 ‘bailout’ (their euphemism for purchase) of the Greek government. In that case, the 5 July 2015 Greek vote was, by a 61% majority, to reject the sale of the nation’s government. The wikipedia article on that matter closes by noting: “On Monday, 13 July, the Syriza-led government of Greece accepted a bailout package that contains larger pension cuts and tax increases than the one rejected by Greek voters in the referendum.” And that was the end of that. The Greek leader, Syriza Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, even stayed in power. By contrast, Britain’s Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron, promptly resigned when the first Brexit vote turned out to reject his position that the UK should stay in the EU. The process of defeating the people’s rebellion is more drawn-out in Britain than it was in Greece; that’s all. Otherwise, it’ll probably be basically the same end-result in UK as it was in Greece. People must accept their fate, as subjects. Western history is going full-circle back to feudalism, but in its modern form.

Supreme Court Throws Out Texas Abortion Law

The Supreme Court on its final day handed down three rulings.  The first was involving that Texas abortion law where hospitals have to meet state medical standards.  This would cut down on the number of abortions.  It appears that the Courts even with Scelia still on the court would have ruled in favor of the abortion lobby.  Not because the law passed was unconstitutional but rather because the effect of this Texas law would be to drastically reduce the number of abortion clinics and make those women seeking abortions have to drive further, inconvienancing them.  The Court dismissed all corruption charges that Governor Mc Donald of Virginia was convicted on by a Federal court in 2014.  Once again there appears to be no legal basis for this decision except somehow Republicans think they should be able to get away with anything.  The third case was favorable.  They said that domestic abusers can be barred from owning firearms.  This ruling will save lives and it is a good thing.

Apparently Bernie Sanders was on some Sunday talk show saying that he had reconciled with Hillary.  Their corresponding delegates have come to an accord and are working together.  Apparently a fifteen percent hike in the minimum wage was approved as a plank.  Also there was talk about breaking up the big Wall Street banks and coming down hard on these Wall Street financiers.  On the negative side- - they are still allowing fracking.  Though according to Shawn Hannity- - they plan to come down hard on those corporations that are global warming deniers and who reject proven science.  It’s good they are working together.  Today Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton were campaigning together as if a sign of things to come, Vice President wise.  They were both wearing similar shades of blue with Warren just a bit more teal than Hillary.  They both had identical hair styles, and made the same gestures.  They looked like a natural team.  Perhaps this is to quelch the rumors that the two don’t get along together.   There was talk about coming down hard on Wall Street.  Hillary must have approved of the text.

David Swanson believes the US being a democracy is a joke because the people seldom get to vote on anything - certainly not any major issue such as going to war.  There have been studies that the rich people get their will enacted in congress fifty or sixty percent of the time, but for the lower class rest of us- - the percentage our will is enacted is about equal to random noise.  Such is the state of our politics.  Many if not the majority of European countries regard the United States as the biggest threat to world peace and security.  Many people are saying that the British Exit vote was really something so many European countries want to do.  But they do it because they feel the United States is the real power behind both NATO and the common market.  So Brussles is really a puppet government with the real power in Washington DC.  It's something to think about.

Donald Trump was down five points in one poll and twelve points in another poll and thirteen points in still another.  The Washington Post poll was the biggest news.  My feeling is that as relations continue to improve between Hillary Clinton and the progressive wing of the democratic party, the more Hillary’s numbers will rise.  However if you insert Gary Johnson and Jill Stein into the picture then Hillary leads by only a point.  The indication seems to be that Johnson must have a lot of support from progressives on the libertarian issues despite Johnson being right wing on other issues.  Jill Stein will understandably cut mostly into Hillary’s lead.  Trump won’t have much time for any Republican convention “bounce” in the polls because the two conventions are only a week apart.  Apparently both conventions plan to put a lot of big time rock stars up on stage making a superbowl production out of the thing more than it usually is.

It’s just after nine thirty on Monday June 27, 2016, Lottery Day.  I just reviewed my E mails and I last wrote Tim in April before today, which surprised me.  I didn’t know it had been over two months.  Tim called me up right after he received it.  He’s going on vacation in late July to Lake Tahoe and Reno to see a car show and visit Dana.  Then he’s going to North Carolina to see Bob [last name withheld] and take a train out of Williams, AZ to see the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Tim gave me his views on the political situation and believes there won’t be a problem with disaffected Sanders voters.  Tim mentioned some Black lady on Mondays on KPFK and how the station is also doing its fund drive right now, so there is a regular epidemic of fund raising.  Tim mentioned that I don’t have a coffee maker any more when I brought up coffee.  Thom Hartman is on right now.  The British people are having buyer’s remorse right now with their vote to leave the European Union and want a voter do-over.  I don’t think they have do-overs in political campaigns.  Let me just add that everyone is saying that this vote of Britain on Thursday will help Trump because we too want to let lose our political rage at being ruled by a distant and unelected elite establish.  I'm not buying into this theory myself.  If we the American people get "buyers remorse" ourselves, only ahead of time the American public may get cold feet at wanting to take the political plunge with Trump.  Now they are referring to the exidus of many Republicans from supporting Trump as a "Trexit".  George Will and former Bush treasury secretary Poulson have come out against Trump and even tried and true Mike Lee on the Shawn Hannity program today had reservations about Trump and appeared to be rationalizing other Republicans' tepid feelings tword Trump.  I wasn’t in a verbal mood and might have had more to say if he’d caught me on another day.  Cigarettes have been generally hard to come by.  I haven’t seen the Rude Pundit on Stephanie in a while.  They are into their fourth week of fund raising.  But they’re only going to do it today and tomorrow.  It just seems to me that they shouldn't have such a piss poor financial base and if these Hollywood actors had any integrety they'd come through by kicking in a few million to eliminate this constant need to go for their financially impoverished viewers for money every few months.  

Britain Exits the European Union

This is Friday June 24, 2016, which is St John’s wort day or something.  The election results are in from England and England has voted to leave the European Economic Union, which surprised the hell out of me given the numerous media rumblings over the subject.  The xenophobes won the day and it’s the immigration issue that turned the tide on this issue.  They used paper ballots in England and counted deliberatively.   It’s a historic day because it’s the reversal of a long term trend toward internationalization.   People like me and Thom Hartman and Pat Buchannon are happy.  Now they are still saying that the TPP is going to be voted on with the lame duck congress no matter who wins in November- - Trump or Clinton.  So the will of the American people will be thwarted.   We’ll see if things stabilize overseas.  But nothing will happen till the House of Commons takes a vote, and that won’t happen for a while and after it does extrication from the European Union will take two years.

What we’ve seen in the past 24 hours or so is a “Portmanteau” Norman Goldman reminds us.  (Believe it or not that word wasn’t red-lined)   This is a combination of two words into one.  I remember not so long hearing about “The two most popular computer items are cats and brexits”.  I thought “I know what a cat is but what kind of an animal is a brexit?”  The Dow Jones Industrials went down over six hundred points.  If you’ve been following my blogs I never told anybody to get back into the market.  I was actually starting to worry about maybe I should give a buy signal.  Now I won’t.  Basically the markets just had a hissy fit.  The British pound is the lowest since 1985.  I’m not impressed by that.  Norman says “A lot of lawyers will be kept busy in the next year or so”.   England was never in The Euro Zone.  Greece voted to leave the European Union a year ago but somehow that vote didn’t count.  They cut some fast deal for Greece to stay in.  Both Shawn Hannity and the top of the hour WCPT news remarked that today is a good day for Donald Trump.  He seems very pleased and vindicated by yesterday’s election results.  Those in the know including Thom Hartman believe that this development of Britain leaving the EU will greatly help Donald Trump’s chances in November.  Personally I’m not buying it.  There are too many other reasons to hate Trump.  Shawn even quoted Bernie Sanders as “Someone who’s on our side”.

We had better soup today.  We had what I’d call a lousey, ineptly made chicken Alfredo.  Patty liked it.  My idea of chicken Alfredo is fettaccini Alfredo with chicken pieces in it.  This wasn’t it, but it did have parmazon cheese on it.  We had a dinner roll with canned pears for dessert.  I listened to Shawn Hannity over the noon hour.  I smoked my last cigarette before one.  I have no remarks about today’s “Days of our Lives” episode except Kate saying she’s heartless “because I’m a survivor”.  I was looking for cigarettes.  We had our resident’s council meeting today in the dining and Rico came by and I had iced tea.  The place was all women except for me, someone pointed out.  Jose (or “Josie”) said we are entitled by seconds on coffee any time we want it plus seconds on orange juice at breakfast, which I’d never heard of before.  There was talk about the medication line and people sitting, waiting in the front room and losing their place in line.  I mentioned the clothing bag that’s been sitting in our room for weeks.  Patty mentioned a bunch of stuff.  We should get butter on potatoes and dinner rolls and pancakes.  Cathy at my table was saying a bunch of stuff but I don’t think she was ever officially recognized.  The other Patty wrote it down.  There were complaints about the water cooler having “warm” water.  The button you push is hard to work and sometimes there is a gritty feel to it.  Someone said the upstairs TV wasn’t working but it’s usually on when I pass by on my way to Glen’s.  There is also no AC in the upper room.  The meeting ended about a quarter to three.   Just now Phyllis Green gave me a brown cigarette.   It is now six and a half days till I get paid at the beginning of the month.  

Advocates of international unions and super-states claim that centralization promotes trade and peace: that customs unions break down trade barriers and international government prevents war. In reality, super-states encourage both protectionism and warfare. The bigger the trade bloc, the more it can cope with the economic isolation that comes with trade warfare. And the bigger the military bloc, the easier it is for bellicose countries to externalize the costs of their belligerence by dragging the rest of the bloc into its fights.
A small political unit cannot afford economic isolationism; it simply doesn’t have the domestic resources necessary. So for all of UKIP’s isolationist rhetoric, the practical result of UK independence from the European economic policy bloc would likely be freer trade and cross-border labor mobility (immigration). Political independence fosters economic interdependence. And economic interdependence increases the opportunity costs of war and the benefits of peace.  The Power of Exit  Super-states also facilitate international policy “harmonization.” What this means is that, within the super-state, the citizen has no escape from onerous laws, like the regulations that unceasingly pour out of the EU bureaucracy. But with political decentralization, subjects can “vote with their feet” for less burdensome regimes. Under this threat of “exit,” governments are incentivized to liberalize in order to compete for taxpayer feet. Today we have a victory for Brexit and for the power of exit. That’s good news for European liberty.  During its Industrial Revolution, Britain was a beacon of domestic liberty and economic progress that stimulated liberal reform on the European continent. An independent Britain in the 21st century can play that role again. In doing so, Britain would help Europe outside the EU far more than it ever could on the inside. Brexit may be a death knell for the European Union, yet ultimately the saving grace for the European people.

Van Driver Officer in the Freddy Gray Case Acquitted

That officer, the driver who drove the van in the Freddy Gray case in Baltimore - was acquitted, which shows you can’t get justice.   The officer was smart.  He waved his right to a jury trial and got a sympathetic judge and then did not testify in his own behalf.   People only do that when they are guilty as sin.  Your odds of being struck by lightning are higher than getting the conviction of a police officer.   People like Shawn Hannity love to keep score on such things as if human justice were reduced to some sporting event and the conservatives keep clobbering the liberals.  In terms of "waving your rights" I wonder if you should be allowed to do that.  Defendants have a right to trial by jury.  Don't "The People" in this case, Black people,  have that Same right to a "trial by jury" to litigate this case drawn from the people of the neighborhood wherein the crime was comitted?

 Meanwhile it appears that England will stay in the European Union despite how everybody really feels about it.  Somehow these kinds of votes are rigged to preserve the status quo.  People like Judy just love the European Union because their banks screw people over like with Greece.  Nobody likes the EU any more but these internationalists or Neo Cons think that one day they are going to take over the world.  So I'm just lamenting the bad news in advance that it looks like the referendum failed and Britain is staying with the EU.

I caught Paul Ryan’s little press conference.  The only thing he said that surprised me was that the vote Democrats have been seeking was already held.  The bill failed in committee and I know enough to know that that’s the end of the process, short of that petition thing where you need 218 signitures Ryan claims the democrats didn’t even try to get.  After this I watched congressional democrats occupying the House chamber on a bad cell phone picture.  Paul Ryan failed to mention that Paul Ryan adjourned Congress two days early for a Fourth of July week and a half long vacation.  It’s absurd to say the democrats are “shutting down congress’ when it’s Paul Ryan who turned off the cameras.   Ryan realizes that ANY vote would prove before on-looking eyes of the American public that the NRA owns congress, lock, stock and barrel.  

The Supreme Court deadlocked four to four on the “Dreamer” act where Obama lets immigrants in.  If Scelia were still on the court “Texas” would have won a five to three ruling in this case.  But the question is how would the new Justice that Obama nominated vote.  The American people are entitled to have a functioning Supreme Court.  This is Supreme Court season in late June when normally a whole raft of controversial cases are decided.  If Donald Trump becomes President every appointment Trumps makes to the Court would be instantly approved by this current congress as constituted and there would be hell to pay.   We really do have to hold our collective noses and vote for Hillary because we have to assume that despite her many flaws, which I’d rather not see in a Presidential candidate, that she would at least appoint liberal Justices. 

Thom has a new book, “Bernie Sanders in his own words” which is a collection of 250 quotes from the senator.  This is a book I'd like to buy if it's up for sale.  It would be the modern version of "Little Red Book' you'd carry with you everywhere anytime you needed a quick, whitty response.  Of course in Mao's book the most famous like in it is 'Power flows out of the barrel of a gun".  There was a time in my life in the mid 'seventies where I found such a philosophy appealing.  But of course today we talk about "Zeitguist" or spirit of the times.  It's kind of like Thom Hartman's "water buffalo" analogy.  The minute 51% of the water buffalo are facing a certain direction, that's the direction they head off tword.   Some people say that when people die their "life energy" spreads out and lodges in the minds of the Living.  We at the Federation speak rather of sometimes, if the dead person is changing his ownership at the time of death, he surrenders his guardian angels and these spread out and protect and inspire others and facilitate certain lines of thought.   In the past I have described the afterlife as a giant cosmic football game where you are always fighting for yardage and "controle of the board".  I'm finding it hard now to actually picture a situation like this. 

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were found not guilty by a jury in the “Stairway to Heaven” plagurism case with Spirit.  As you know the charge was that when Led Zeppelin and Spirit toured together in 1970 that Page and Plant got the idea to rip them off.  Stairway to Heaven was written sitting by a fire in a cabin in 1971. 

This is after dinner.  It’s still nice and cool in here.  For dinner we had Salisbury steak with tomato based sauce, and a half baked potato with butter and sour cream.  We hit the mother lode tonight.  Some of that complaining at the last council meeting must have worked.  There was no vegetable but Judy gave me her bowl of beets I ended up not even touching.  Paul gave me a second potato and a second butter and sour cream.  Later he gave me his chocolate cake.  Then after a few moments seconds were making the rounds and the cart made it around the room and I had seconds on the meat.  That was what you call a satisfying meal.  I sat on the west side of the bench being wilted by the sun.  Chewy at noon said that tomorrow is his last day here and he’s glad to be leaving.  He knew from the first day that coming here was a mistake because he’s always talking about marijuana.  He says he’s going to get a bag of marijuana and smoke pipe fulls of the stuff.   He invited Patty to come with him but Patty said “I’m not ready to leave here yet”.  Given her situation of bi-polar diagnosis, that could take time.  

Is There An Upside to Donald Trump?

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be horrible for Americans and the people of the world.

But most politicians are thoroughly corrupt.  Neither the Democratic or Republican parties represent the interests of the American people. Elections have become nothing but scripted beauty contests, with both parties ignoring the desires of their own bases.

So today, 12 countries – Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Australia      Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, United States and Vietnam – signed the TPP.

They never followed through on their promise of an open and lively debate.

TPP still can be stopped … if the legislative bodies of the signatory nations refuse to ratify it.

Only by raising hell can we stop this monster.  

  Jimmy Carter endorsed Donald Trump apparently a few years back.  If I were Trump I’d have mixed emotions over this but you know Ted Cruz is going to make something of it.   I think the fact that Donald Trump is “flexible” in his beliefs might be a selling point if you are afraid that someone like Hillary Clinton might shed this masquerade as Shawn puts it of her liberalism- -and relate to at best a centrist or tool of Wall Street and be like the third term of a do nothing Obama administration that gets nothing done.  Today it was Joe Scarborough or someone who asked Rick Santorum just what he expects to prove by endorsing Marco Rubio for President.  “Name one thing that Marco has accomplished in his time in congress”.  Santorum was unable to come up with anything.  Somehow that answer didn’t bother anybody.  I think it’s fiction (if Obama wants to talk about fiction) that Hillary Clinton will somehow be swayed by all this popular sentiment to a more progressive vein.  If you read the links in the posting referenced above you will realize that the positions of both political parties are pretty much set in concrete and both are hopelessly unresponsive to the wishes of the American people.  There’s a part of me that believes Donald Trump might be just the person to shake up this hopeless status quo.

Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus are all lined up in a grand conjunction tomorrow morning in the southeast skies.  As you know there was a “cosmic convergence” in mid August of 1987.  It could be one of those “moments” of mental clarity where the indecision and endless debates you’ve been having with yourself are all banished and you know exactly what you need to do.  This was true with Joey on DL who had one of these “moments of mental clarity” seeing his father with a woman he had been in love with for weeks about to make love.  OK he’s an impressionable teenager but you have to learn these things sometime, so it might as well be sooner.  Perhas there will be a break-out debate which everybody sees either on the Republican or Democratic side where the voters en mass have their moments of mental clarity and know who they have to vote for.  Right now I am speaking in the abstract.  It’s my hope of course that this “clarity” comes on the democratic side in the coming weeks, in favor of voting for Bernie Sanders.  

Let’s talk about Raphael – Edwardo – Cruz, with the R’s properly rolled, and I don’t mean in a joint.  Raphael Cruz cheated in the Iowa caucus.  Monday he sent mailings out to all of his prospective caucus goers saying that Dr Ben Carson had dropped out of the race, or would “in a few days” come out with a key announcement that he was dropping out.  This is why there is a drop-off between 23% points and just nine points for Carson in fourth place.  Conceivably there may have been another seven or eight points for Carson and they would have come out of Ted Cruz’s 28 percent that he won with.  Cruz has no remorse as to what he did.  But Raphael Cruz didn’t stop there.  He also sent notices that if his followers didn’t come out to caucus they would get a voter delinquency notice in the mail in the next few days, scaring people.

Norman Goldman is spinning and twisting things like Shaen Hannity has been known to do.  Goldman was going off on a caller who was pro Sanders, and wondering why Goldman was so critical of Sanders.  Sanders responded that the caller didn’t know how to get outside his own brain and think analytically and Goldman then says “It’s a fact that Sanders has no future now and the polling democraphics probe it and the numbers Monday night prove it so, “Don’t get mad at me, get mad at the pollers and the results on election night.  I get tired of this sort of slip-shod reasoning.

Mike Huckibee, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum Quit the Race

Whoever wins on our side faces Marco Rubio

Yesterday Mick Huckibee suspended (meaning “ended”) his campaign for President.  Today Rand Paul quit the Presidential race, and tonight Rick Santorum has announced that he’s going to withdraw from the race.  It’s the liberal talk show hosts that are much more- - perniciously against Senator Bernie Sanders rather than people like  Shawn Hannity.  As I’ve said elsewhere Hannidy’s view of the Iowa caucuses are in general more objective than the views we get from people like Norman Goldman.  These liberal hosts will hang up on any caller who offers a negative view of Hillary Clinton.  They offer little explanation for this permanent barring of such callers other than it’s just “wrong” for a democrat to attack another democrat.  But by their collective actions even people like Thom Hartman are systematically informing their listeners not to vote for Bernie Sanders under any circumstances.  It doesn’t matter whether Bernie has better ideas.  And it doesn’t even matter that polls show that Bernie would do better against the top three republican opponents than Hillary.  Any discussion of Hillary’s liabilities or weaknesses is simply “not allower”.  Contrast this with the Republicans.  They attacked Ted Cruz right and left attacking the New York bank loans and his position on immigration in the past and also the whole ethanol contraversy in Iowa.  Trump brought Sarah Palin into the campaign and even got the endorsement of Iowa’s governor.  It didn’t do any good.  My point is that hard work and a good “ground game’ win the day.  Bernie Sanders could have had a victor if the would be supporters would have had “permission” to vote for him by their esteemed leaders such as Thom Hartman and Norman Goldman.  Now Norman Goldman is as much as calling for Bernie Sanders to drop out of the race after losing one state.  What are Goldman and Hartman afraid of anyhow?  I remember how Hartman used to be having Sanders on his show every week.  I long for the days when Hartman referred to Bernie Sanders as “America’s senator”.

President Obama visited a mosque today and it’s apparently the first time Obama has visited a mosque since he’s been President.  Shawn Hannity threw a caniption fit over it and has two women with two competing opinions.  One was in favor of the visit and the other was and is rabidly against it.  Hannidy is talking about harshness toward religious minorities.  And of course he’s talking about terrorism and this mosque’s ties to Islamic terrorism.  Any time this President says anything favorable about Islam it sets off alarm bells on the part of the far right.  According to this lady early in his carrier- - Mohamed spoke peace to the Jews but when the Jews would not accept Islam then later verses were written and under Islamic law the later verses of the Koran always supplant the earlier verses.  If this is so it’s not the way Christians view the Bible.   If you asked me Obama made his first mistake severing ties with Jeremiah Wright.  Obama has been on the defensive with regard to religion ever since he did that.

Sean Hannity did a better analysis of the Iowa caucuses than did Norman Goldman.  Donald Trump was the big loser of the day coming in at 24% to Ted Cruz’s 28% and Marco Rubio at a strong third at 23%.   Norman thinks that Bernie is a lower because of the liberal grange movement that’s white and just the sort of voters that go for Bernie.  Sean Hannity pointed out that there were six coin flips and Hillary won them all and won six deligates.  The basic percentage was 49.8% for Hillary to 49.6% for Bernie, or a two tenths of a percent margin of victory.  Don’t call her Landslide Hillary.  But there was other funny business because Hillary voters were counted even after they had switched their allegence to Bernie at the caucus meetings.   But Bernie will get his comfortable victory in New Hampshire next week.   It was 62 degrees today.  I got vanilla flavored instant coffee from Glen in his room for four cigarettes. 

Norman Goldman is battling another pro Bernie caller defending his own hostility toward the Senator from Vermont.  If we were believe Norman's breakdown of the demographics, you'd think nobody voted for Bernie since Hillary leads in all the categories except the youths.  And the tilt toward Sanders there is impressive like 84% for Bernie ant 14% for Hillary.  But Goldman says "This year there was nowhere near the number of youths that came out for Obama eight years ago.  Actually the figure was down four percent.  Goldman considers four percent "nowhere near".  All it shows is that Sanders didn't lie and make wild promises the way that Obama did of things he never delivered on.  Yet Hillary is running for a third year of Obama mention Obama's name any time she has a chance.  I don't remember.  Did Humphrey bill himself as "another term of the Johnson administration?"  I don't think so.  Hillary leads among minorities in a major way and by moderates in a major way.  And yet there are key issues where Hillary fails.  She fought for the Trans Pacific Partnership relentlessly over the past four years.  Today they took some official ratification vote in New Zealand.  Hillary took money from Goldman Sachs.  Hillary is against bringing back Glass Steigle.  Hillary is too extreme on the guns issue.  There is a gender gap where women prefer Hillary.  So in a sense she is the "women's candidate" being for things like abortion, and paid medical leave for new mothers.  But the Trans Pacific Partnership is such an important thing I'd vote for Donald Trump over Hillary at this point because defeating the Trans Pacific Partnership is that important.   

Hillary Clinton Perhaps Not So Bad

Norman Goldman talked about the Iowa caucus.  Of course primaries for choosing party candidates began about the turn of the last century.  They flourished for a time but never really caught on long term, as “party regulars” chose the deligates.  This changed in 1968 on the Democratic side when clearly nobody had voted for Hubert Humphrey yet he still won.  So there were radical changes in the rules for the 1972 convention.  This is how George Mc Govern was able to win because he was the people’s candidate.  In Iowa Ed Musky won a third and George Mc Govern won a third and “undecided” won a third.  The way democratic caucuses work is that “undecided” can be your candidate of choice but any choice you make has to have at least fifteen percent of the vote or else you have to consolidate with partisans of other candidates.  When you arrive at a democratic caucus you divide up into groups and argue for your candidate for a half hour or more and then vote.  As long as there are fragments of less than fifteen percent remaining you keep on discussing and voting till those under fifteen percent votes get consolidated.  If you’re a Republican you just write your vote for your candidate on a piece of paper and drop it into the ballot box and leave and they count the votes.  It’s said that the Republicans have a more accurate representation of their party in Iowa than the democrats do.  This is because there are a lot of blacks and minorities in other parts of the country.  It’s this untapped minority wild card that could sway the election for either Bernie or Hillary as the weeks progress.  The Iowa caucuses start in just a couple of minutes from right now- - so it’s happening. 

Robert Ford was US Ambassador to Syria when the revolt against Syrian president Assad was launched. He not only was a chief architect of regime change in Syria, but actively worked with rebels to aid their overthrow of the Syrian government.Ford assured us that those taking up arms to overthrow the Syrian government were simply moderates and democrats seeking to change Syria’s autocratic system. Anyone pointing out the obviously Islamist extremist nature of the rebellion and the foreign funding and backing for the jihadists was written off as an Assad apologist or worse. Ambassador Ford talked himself blue in the face reassuring us that he was only supporting moderates in Syria. As evidence mounted that the recipients of the largesse doled out by Washington was going to jihadist groups, Ford finally admitted early last year that most of the moderates he backed were fighting alongside ISIS and al-Qaeda.

I watched Face the Nation and heard Donald Trump and Marco Rubio.  But soon they put in a ton of commercials with the promise of a lot more and I dialed away.  The problem with Marco Rubio is that he's shifty and mealy mouthed and won't own up to his own mistakes no matter the mound of evidence.  I went and smoked a long butt that was dry outside.  James said the coroner who was here today took someone away upstairs and said it was Janet, and I looked and there was a warning seal on her door by the coroner or something.  I can believe that no how.  Janet is as healthy as a horse.  Upon further reflection she wasn't that healthy.  She suffered from chronic diaria and was constantly taking medication for it.  Both she and Richard were heavy smokers.  Janet had three or four Cokes a day and an arsenal of snack items in her ice chest including cinnamon rolls and lots of chocolate bars, and Janet loved her coffee and was usually the one ahead of me in the coffee line at the liquor store in the morning.  There is also a rumor going around she jumped out the window in the middle of the night.  (Did she land head first and break her neck?)  Janet was not religious.

Hillary Clinton gave a pretty good speech at an Iowa campaign rally I played on C-Span.  Bill didn’t like it.  He was introduced first by Chelsea and then by Bill.  Chelsea looked like she needed make-up.  Hillary has this tendancy to say what she has done in the past but often (in previous speeches) has been inclined to not be specific about what she was GOING to do right NOW.  I thought this speech remedied that problem where she did challenge Bernie Sanders taking on his pet issues of Wall Street and the job market and inequity of incomes.  Even Hillary said she was going to take on the "shadow bankers" such as Lehman Brothers and Country-wide.  (I thought Lehman Brothers went out of business)  She didn't mention Goldman Sachs.  Let me just say if her latest speech on C-Span is any guide I will feel better about voting for Hillary in November, that she will carry on the cause of progressivism.  But maybe I better consult with Mike Papentonio first.  

Just to explain about Victor Kiriacus’s family, Victor has three brothers and he’s disowned two of them.  Alexix is the father of Justin and Justin is the father of Sonny and Alexander.  Titus is the father of Xander, who flirted with Nicole and caused other problems and has now left town.  Demas is the other brother who is blackmailing Philip, Victor’s son.  It seems a girl Philip was dating passed out in his hotel room and died due to a drug overdose.  Worse yet her father was the chief of police or something.  Philip and a friend moved the body to a different room and somehow Demas found out about it.  Now Philip is forced to do Demas’ bidding to sabotage his father, Victor’s, carrier and standing.  Demas has it in for Victor because he spent thirty years in prison based on the crime of killing Victor’s fiancée of the time.  I guess they could have done a whole Greek Godfather type documentary if they’d thought of it.