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.