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.  

Staring Down the Forces of the Neo-Cons

Some points detailed in the discussion:

-Neo-liberalism / neo-conservatism relate to neither ‘liberalism’ or ‘conservatism’.  They are an ideology and form of religion and god-worship, based on self-interest and the whitewashing of memory.  ‘At the end of the day, it’s about power and money.’

Commentary:  Neo Conservatism is not an honest philosophy.  Have you ever heard of a Neoplasm?  For those of you in Rio Linda, that is a polite dressed up word for - Cancer.  Neo-cons are a cancer on the faboric of society at large.  Liberalism is an honest philosophy.  Conservatism is an honest philosophy.  However neo-conservatism is just a big power grab, devoid of any of the usual philosophical mooring that gives it any sort of moral credibility.   This is why it must be defeated and can only damage the country the longer it is allowed to continue.

-Declarations of ‘truth’ and ‘inevitability’ are two aspects of ideology highly prevalent in neo-liberalism/conservatism.

Commentary:  Neither inevitability nor truth is a bad thing.  In fact the persistance and eventual success of both could be indeed taken as a sign that "God was on their side", if you know my definition of God.  Even an atheist would be compelled to admit that "God" is a handy metaphor to explain the success here, even if you don't believe in one.  There was a nine year old kid who called the Shawn Hannity program today.  He was into the marshal arts, and also a straight A student and his goal is to become a brain surgeon.  He said something key.  He said "Yes, things come easily to me but that doesn't stop me from studying my subjects hard (dilligently) anyhow.  

-Neos claiming Edmund Burke as their ‘godfather’ indicates lunacy and denial of history; like other lunatics claiming Christ or Muhammad to justify other unacceptable things.

Commentary:  Stu Baby has long maintained that the basic History of Christianity and its near deification of the Apostle Paul as somehow the "Johnny Appleseed" of the church, and the basic "story" of Jesus- - are both essentially frauds.  They are not "history written in advance" like prophecy, but rather a bogus long after the fact "history" written as though it were the ongoing and continuing revelation of "God" when it is not, and denies the basic fact that the "seed of faith" in Christianity is essentially pythagarian and Marcionite Gnosticsm.  

-Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ is a low-level image of the hand of god.  But when one talks to the neos about Adam Smith, one discovers they haven’t read him.  He isn’t taught.  People only know quotes.  They don’t know Smith was actually ‘incredibly distrustful’ of powerful businessmen and said things like ‘never allow them to be alone in a room together; they’ll combine and falsify the market’, etc.

Commentary:  Adam Smith employed the image of "The hand of God" or what have you as a "God metaphor" to explain a basic physical fact of math and accounting and how markets work.  Like all scoundrals, naturally these neo-cons misquote Adam Smith.

-At this point, [for example, as illustrated by latest Oxfam report], all of the promises made by neo-liberal globalization [summarized in discussion, 13:30] have collapsed.  None of them happened; it’s the exact opposite.  We are now in the most nationalist period we’ve seen since the 1930s, with all the dangers that go along with it.

Commentary:  The translation of this passage goes like this.  You never see old Sylvia Brown clips or reruns of old psychic "black hilocopter" ratio shows years after the fact because the stream of broken promises would pile higher than an urban land fill.  

Wind on the Water

James Connee or whoever head of the FBI says that Hillary Clinton and one other person will be indicted within the next few days.  The government released a lot of Hillary’s E mails today.  They were going to release them all but they all have not been cleared yet for classified information.   22 E mails are so highly classified that a lot of government officials can’t view them without elaborate protocols.   Shawn Hannity claimed on his show that this debate came in 3^rd out of seven held so far for Republican candidates.  It could be argued that anything better than last place is a victory for FOX news.  Clearly the attendance number was “competitive”.    KEIB has a strange saying these days.  They say “Our conscious is as clear as Hillary’s server”.  That would imply if you think about it, that the management of KEIB has had a memory wipe and are now a bunch of zombies walking around incapable of moral judgement.   I guess I told you that the media cherry picked one poll out of four that came out that showed Bernie ahead in Iowa and the other three showed Hillary Clinton leading by nine points.   Not to ruffle Stephanie’s feathers any but I think it’s time to bring back the C word.   And that word is “crusade”.  We need to see the Bernie Sanders as a mighty moral crusade.  And we need to think more like the North Vietnamese communists- - who see it as a long term struggle and are not deturred in the least by an occasional set-back here and there.  We need to look at the overall forward momentum of the campaign.  And I think we are winning.  

Paul Kantner died yesterday of multiple organ failure at age 74.   This makes him years younger than Grace Slick.  There’s someone else who died in a lot of pain.  Kantner had a heart aback last March.   He was a co founder of the Jefferson Airplane but one thing I forget is although he and Grace Slick were married and had a child (named God) together that Kantner preceded Slick’s entry into the group.  Marty Balin was the founding member and Kantner was the first one he picked to join in August of 1965, kind of like John asking Paul to join the group.  Apparently the Jefferson Airplane were friends with the Doors and “The Doors” issued a statement on Kantner’s death.  Kantner is an Andromidan, or at least started out that way.   Marty Balin regards them as both Cosmic Pioneers.   Hexigram 29 in the I Ching “The abysmal water” with a six in sixth place could be translated either “raft on the water” or “wind on the water” or maybe raft with a sail on it.  It’s finding a vehical to gain safe passage through the perils of the Afterlife when your future is unknown.  I have applied this I Ching chapter and one moving line to either Kurt Cobain or Dennis Wilson. 

Daniel and Shane were in for Thom Hartman today.  Now a caller is speaking of a four way race between Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump verses Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush.  Some of the clips of this debate showed an exercise in humorous remarks.    This is Friday January 29, 2016 with less than three days to go before I get paid.   It can be said that I’ve “saved” about twenty dollars from not going to the store this week.  

“From the mean streets of New York to the hills of LA, a voice is rising to serve justice”.  Note the bumper music.  That’s “Spirit of Radio”.  After all this time of speculation it will all become much clearer in just three days on Monday when actual votes start coming in.  Then with or without an additional Democratic debate next Thursday, will be the New Hampshire primary on the 8^th and then South Carolina and then one month from next Monday on March first will be super Tuesday.   Last night’s debate came in sixth out of seven debates in terms of viewership.  Shawn Hannity had this debate pegged at third.  Who’s right?  Donald Trump is bragging that the numbers make him look good.  He says “I took a chance and didn’t know the end result but we went up in the polls”.   So will Donald Trump quit if he doesn’t win on Monday?   Stephanie was talking about parallel universes.   I’ve always speculated that the dreams we have are conscious memories from someone in a parrellel universe.  This conforms to the adage of me and Stu Baby that “Anything that CAN happen HAS happened in a parrellel Universe.  So we will all have our own “Malibu retreat” memories- - just like Brady in today’s soap opera.  Andre is sneaking around Hope’s house seeking vengeance and there is a dark part of me that hopes he succeeds.  Stu has a theory that he would not want to be brought back from death is he was a complete mental vegetable- - and had no mental capacity to do either a good or a bad deed.  But Stu says he doesn’t mind a little pain and says to me “Where there is a hard enough Will, there is Hope”.   Just as long as it isn’t Hope Brady.   Dr Ben Carson goofed up just once on the preamble to the constitution saying securing the benefits (rather than blessings) of liberty to ourselves and posterity.    Doesn’t the word “Blessings” imply some God, who gives it?  (Selah)

Richard Moore died today.  I found out from Paul and Nancy just this afternoon when the residents council meeting adjourned early.    People like Joe and I have known Richard for fourteen years.  He always had the same room number but had a host of roommates.   He was really skinny to the point of looking unhealthy, yet they say he had a good appetite.  He fell a couple weeks ago and then returned and had aged considerably and then went back to the hospital and we never heard another thing.  Everybody thought Richard was a nice guy.  People said he was still in his sixties though he looked older than that.  He didn’t age well.  He could always be counted on to make a good cigarette deal, and would walk a lot to buy things for other people.  He sure got a lot more exercise than I did.  But he had this eccentric side.  He would talk about multiple takes of movies using different actors and actresses-  and the studios would release only one of the movies - and would have all of these other stories and anicdotes and alluded to knowing people in the government, and in his own way I guess was a little reminiscent of Grandpa Simpson.   Glenda gave me a pack of cigarettes containing butts and she said “All of the butts in here were only smoked by me- - nobody else”. 

Wally says, "To get a good job you need the proper education and training, but in order to get that needed on the job training - you have to first have a job"  (Selah) 

Trump Is Afraid Of Little Girls!

Sanders isn't afraid to take on any and all comers

I turned on the computer and watched about ten minutes of Rand Paul giving a half hour speech to a younger audience.  He wants us to know he’s really big on liberty.  I like the idea of “liberty” if it’s truly Christian, moral liberty- - and not this bullshit most Republicans refer to it as like the right to be bigoted and blow your neighbor’s brains out at the drop of a hat.  Rand Paul wants to safeguard the first ten amendments of the Constitution and so do I.  In a perfect world the second amendment wouldn’t bother me.  People would be morally restrained and civilized and know what to do with a gun.  This is not the country we live in where people develop whole arsenals with some fantasy of taking on the entire federal government and winning.  Rand Paul is doing it the right way.  He wants to be elected into power.   Rand Paul wants especially to safeguard the fourth amendment, and let’s not forget the first amendment.  Freedom of speech and of the press and assembly and religion is important, too.    Rand Paul mentioned the fifth and sixth amendments.  President Obama issued a preventative detention ruling where any American citizen could be rounded up and thrown into Guantanamo or something without charges and without a trial.   A few minutes to four I had Rand Paul on a little more.  I had forgotten that Marco Rubio endorsed bulk data collection and wants all our phone records.  This is an excellent reason not to vote for Rubio.  Nobody is talking about Rand Paul in Iowa but I would like to see him do well.  

Both Shawn Hannity and Norman Goldman talked about the upcoming Republican debate tonight on FOX in just a few minutes.  I hope I can get it.  Shawn and Rush lately have been trying hard to stay objective and not offend either side.  Norman had a few helpful insights on the matter.  Both Rush Limbaugh and Norman say “Donald Trump wants to punish FOX network for not showing him the respect he thinks is owed him.  It seems he’s hoping nobody will tune into the Debate tonight without him there.  I rather think the exact opposite will happen and more people than ever will tune into the debate, some even being attracted to the notion that Trump will NOT be there.  Trump sees himself as “controlling the media- - if he takes action or doesn’t take action or even in his sleep he can control it”.   I think Trump has lost touch with reality.  One caller asked if the Clintons and Trump have ever done business with one another.  If so I’d trust Donald over Goldman Sachs.  But they go to the same social events and the Clintons were invited to Trump’s third wedding, and they live in this same neighborhood- Chapiquah New York.  Norman is sticking to this idea that Trump only got in this race to destroy the Republican Party and that when (not if) Trump loses (to Hillary) Trump will write a book saying “I did it.  It was all a plot to take down the Republican party.  Donald Trump will be attending a Veterans benefit tonight and Mike Huckibee will also be at that function, which is well and good- - and I’m really not complaining.   

 Mike Huckibee was talking when I came in.  There was a political rally held in a pizza place in Aames, Iowa.  First it was the former liutennant governor of South Carolina, who was a young guy.  I had the Norman Goldman program on.  That Bundy crowd in the Oregon bird sanctuary got arrested, or at least half or so of them did.  One guy named LeVoy Finnigan or whoever – the loud mouth- - was shot and killed by FBI agents.  There are six witnesses who say he had his hands up at the time.  They decided to arrest them because they’re always going into down for supplies.  They’ve had free entry and exit all this time and nobody has tried to stop them.   If they want to wave a banner now that says “White Lives Matter”, I wouldn’t flame them a bit.  It’s a free country.

Paul called at 3:25 and I went down there ten minutes later and it was about a five minute wait.  I didn’t need a jacket beyond this heavy shirt because it was a warm day.  We signed in and went to Mom’s place.  [material deleted here]  There is this incident we’ve heard endlessly about Mom falling off her seat thing in the shower that wasn’t fastened down correctly.  It was determined that it was better for Mom to have an assistant shower her for a ten dollar fee each time.  That could get expensive.  What struck me about Mom’s shower is that it was not only small but - - dark.  We went down to dinner about four thirty because it had been open since 4:15.  I decided to have the catfish because I didn’t think I’d ever had it before.  But the flavor of it was familiar so they must have had it here.   Judy had the spareribs because she says she needs all that protein to ward off hypoglycemia.  I went to the salad bar but the only extras I put on it were beets and carrots.  There selection seemed smaller than last time and if I had seen crutons I’d have used them.  They didn’t have Russian dressing so I had blue cheese.  I also had a baked potato with sour cream and later, butter pats.  There was cauliflour and whipped squash.  We had a cream puff for dessert.  Apparently Dianne put in an appearance around here at Mom’s place.  She has put on a lot of weight and looks “matronly” and her breasts are saggy.  Tim has officially endorsed Sanders for President.  I need to write him.  Judy said that Sanders favors a tax rate of ninety percent.  Shawn claims to pay over sixty percent to Uncle Sam.  The conversation got bogged down in financial details after that.  Paul took out Mom’s copy of the Science and Technology book apparently Wendy gave us all copies of.  I was reading that.  There was also a financial report Paul handed to me to read.  Eventually we left and it wasn’t even yet seven.  Mom’s TV screen is only slightly larger than mine, yet it psychologically seems a lot bigger.  On the way home Judy went into a lecture about how she doesn’t want to be recessitated when she has a heart attack of something.  Paul and I said that we did.  The memory of how Dad died prematurely in that hospital is a little too fresh for us.  But Judy said if you’re a doctor you see all of the pain and discomfort a patient goes through.  I was dropped off here before seven and went about looking for cigarettes.  

We have some cosmic news.   I sent out an APB looking for information about what happened with Bones.  Even though he appeared Tuesday night and had remarks,  when I started asking him questions about stuff I was curious about he got a little defensive and he seemed more "serious" than normal.  From what I've been able to piece together is that Bones is rumored to be in the process of reincarnating into another body and therefore is not himself- - his "katra" is misplaced, to borrow from Star Trek.  There is a lot the Tacomans have it in for Bones and took away his media outlet and his power as a propagandist.  For that matter the old Sirius federation has had its autonomy reduced, though they are now telling me "Only so far as it pertains to Bones".   Bones to me denied he was in the process of reincarnating.  The buzz is that it's something that's out of control that he didn't choose.  That whole complex on Sirius A with the recording studio and everything else there- - Bones has been locked out of.   Bones wanted his own favorite group to be honored with a ZAC Tarrot card and it wasn't.   This rock group (which I first heard of in 1980) I am not allowed to mention but the rap by Mal Evans is that "They are a little dangerous being the Delphi group".   This would be the northern cross alias Signus the Swan alias the star Daneb or whatever.  If you think you see a hint, you may be right. 

Siegelman verses Mc Donald - A Contrast

Hillary Clinton could still be indicted according to Governor Christie on the Shawn Hannity program.  I watched Hannity in the two o clock hour after snack break.  We were limited to one cup of iced tea from Rico due to Lynne’s class.  Hillary is reported to have changed the headings on E mails to hide the fact they were the highest level of top secret.  In fact there is a special category for these E mails where even government officials have to go through special clearance just to read them, and not take the documents out of the room, just like with the TPP agreement.  I’m inclined to believe Christie’s judgement on this issue because he does have the experiancial background.  It’s just smarter in my opinion to vote for Sanders.  But in addition to Michael Bloomberg, who is a social liberal on issues like guns and abortions- - others may join the race on the democratic side to fill the potential void left by Hillary’s expected untimely departure. 

In terms of the Flint water case- - these emergency heads that rule in the place of elected officials have MORE power than the officials they replaced.  They are virtual dictators and city council votes mean nothing.  First they had a problem with souminilla in the water.  So they dumped a lot of chlorine in the water but they said that created carsogens in the water.  Then they had the lead problem because of the snow run off from cities containing a lot more salt from the streets.  The salt eats out the lead in the pipes.  And to save yet more money they left out the anti-corrosive chemical that is usual put in the water.  So there is no question Governor Snyder is behind it all.  These appointed dictators sell off city property to raise money but without anyone’s approval who was elected.  Governor Snyder should unquestionably be impeached, if not do jail time for what he has done.  But that isn’t happening.   Instead Governor Snyder gets on the TV and plays the nice guy all concerned and stuff- - .

There is big news in soap land.  Stephano Di Mira is dead.  He’s been blown to smitherines along with his son, Andre.  Andre went wandering off into a condemned building minutes before the entire building was taken down with explosives.  Andre found Stephano’s body- - but that’s about the last thought he was allowed to have on this earth before both were blown to Kingdom Come.  Meanwhile Chad, a younger brother of Andre- - found out that Stephano being cash strapped has failed to make mortgage payments on the mansion, which is strange in itself.  But now Chad wants to put the mansion into receivership or whatever and then buy the Mansion on auction when the assets are liquidated.  The Mansion is so unpopular in Salam no one else in town would want to touch it.  So Chad could be the lord of his own manor, profiting from the crime of Hope Brady, Stephano’s nemisis- - and Raphael Hernandez, who helped cover up the crime and move the body to a place where it would never be found.  

A recent bribery conviction may lead to the U.S. Supreme Court further corrupting the U.S. political system.

How does one even get convicted of bribery in a system that has legalized it to the extent that ours has? Look at Congress members’ and other federal office holders’ actions and their sources of funding. There is debate only over whether they are bribed to act or rewarded for having acted, but the correlation between action and funding is undisputed, and the sources of funding unrestricted. A headline like “Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton’s State Department” raises a few eyebrows but no indictments.

The correlation is even more strongly documented between funding and gaining access to Congress members, and the general trend so clear that an academic study has identified the U.S. form of government as an oligarchy. Many political observers now think of elections as a corrupting influence, which no doubt fuels a taste for pseudo-solutions like term limits and billionaire politicians who don’t have to sell out.

And yet, two U.S. state governors have recently been convicted of taking bribes: Alabama’s Don Siegelman and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell. Siegelman has been in prison for over four years though he was targeted by politically motivated prosecutors and was never accused of any personal gain. McDonnell wasbribed with a Rolex watch, plane tickets, dinners, trips, loans, catering, golf bags, and i-phones, and, according to his successful prosecutors took official actions in his capacity as governor to benefit the person bribing him within minutes of receiving various loot. The U.S. Supreme Court has kept McDonnell and his wife (also convicted) out of prison as it considers his case. A bipartisan collection of 113 current and former state Attorneys General urged the Supreme Court to correct the injustice to Siegelman, and it declined to consider it.

The U.S. Supreme Court was uninterested in a bribery case like Siegelman’s that involved no bribery. What’s frightening is its interest in a case like McDonnell’s. His lawyers will argue that while he and his wife clearly benefitted, he didn’t know everything his wife had promised in return for the bribes, nor did he agree to it, nor did he deliver on it. There is clearly the potential that the new standard in U.S. politics going forward will be that you can give luxury toys and personal bribes directly to an office holder, as long as he or she fails to deliver the public policy you asked for, or as long as he or she doesn’t try very hard to deliver it.

Such a standard would open the door to direct bribery of politicians in a new way not achieved by Citizens United and related rulings that facilitate bribery through campaigns and PACs and foundations. As long as the two parties are discreet, who will be able to prove that the favor your politician did your corporation was actually in response to the Mercedes you gave him?

If you imagine the Supreme Court’s interest is in correcting injustice, as opposed to expanding the legalization of bribery, have another look at the Don Siegelman case. Siegelman was by far the most successful Democratic politician in an overwhelmingly Republican government in Alabama. When he won reelection as governor in 2002, the election result was reversed after Republican officials in a single county waited until the Democratic officials had gone home, then recounted the votes and determined that there had been an error. Despite Democrats’ objections of impropriety and pointing out that the voters whose votes were switched away from Siegelman didn’t — as one would have expected — have their votes similarly “corrected” in other races, the Republican Attorney General of Alabama upheld the result and forbid any manual recount to verify it.

Republican lawyer Jill Simpson describes “a five-year secret campaign to ruin the governor,” during which Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s senior political advisor, asked her to “try to catch Siegelman cheating on his wife.” Rove associate Bill Canary, she says, told her that his wife Leura and friend Alice Martin, both federal prosecutors, would “take care of” Siegelman. When Siegelman began running to win his office back two years after losing it, the U.S. Justice Department took him to trial alleging a Medicaid scam, but the judge listened to the opening argument and then threw out the case as worthless.

The “Justice” Department kept trying, and finally got Siegelman on bribery. His offense? He was not alleged to have pocketed a dime or to have received any support through any foundation or committee. Rather, he re-appointed a man to a board who had been appointed to the same position by the previous three governors, a man who made contributions to a state lottery to pay for college scholarships for poor kids. Yes, Siegelman’s idea to help poor people with a lottery seems to have missed the fact that lotteriesare taxes on poor people. But does that make him guilty of bribery or justify prosecutors targeting him?

The star witness in the Siegelman case claimed that Siegelman met with this man and emerged from the meeting with a check in hand talking openly about the quid pro quo. In reality, the check was written days after that meeting, and the star witness was facing 10 years in prison and had cut a deal with the prosecutors to reduce his sentence.

A U.S. House Committee investigated the Siegelman case and asked Karl Rove to testify. He declined. And the committee declined to hold him in contempt or to use inherent contempt. He was simply allowed to refuse. Now Siegelman’s son, attorney Joseph Siegelman, has filed suit seeking documents from the U.S. government. I asked him what he hopes to find.

“Every stone that gets overturned ends up showing something negative,” he said. As an example he pointed to the Justice Department’s description of an email from a prosecutor of Siegelman to the campaign manager of his main Republican opponent, a description of an email that didn’t become public until years after Siegelman’s trial. “We don’t know what else they have to hide,” said Joseph Siegelman.

I asked Joseph Siegelman about the Supreme Court’s decision to hear McDonnell’s case and not his father’s, and he exclaimed, “How can our system of justice be so skewed?”

The worst of it may be that a ruling in favor of McDonnell and the inherent right to accept Rolexes from lobbyists could leave Siegelman sitting in prison. He never accepted any Rolex. And he did re-appoint that healthcare professional to that healthcare board.

Should the Supreme Court further legalize bribery, the people of the United States should send Benjamin Franklin a note informing him that we were not able to keep a republic after all. Or they should rise up and compel the Congress, or compel the states to go around the Congress in amending the Constitution, to end all forms of bribery, ban all private election spending, create free and equal media air time on our air waves for all qualified candidates, provide public financing for campaigns, and for godsake free Don Siegelman.

Americans Involved In Illegal Israeli Settlements

I don’t know about you but I find the following material absolutely scandalous.  It seems that America is more connected than you think with activities in Israel, as follows:

Native journalist Zebula Hebert told me that, in the Israeli colonization of Palestine, he sees “the United States’ genocide against American Indians. Gaza and the West Bank are two big reservations…”  A new study out of Oxford University further reveals that this statement is more literal than symbolic, finding that 15% of Israeli settlers illegally living in Palestine are US citizens; see IB Times.  (Of Israelis overall, only 2% are US citizens.)  Though law on the issue is unambiguous and every authoritative body agrees Israeli settlements are war crimes, the Israeli government entices the settlers, many of whom are religious extremists needing no enticement, through subsidies, and the US subsidizes Israel with nearly $4 billion per year, in addition to lethal weapons transfers and other forms of support, such as blocking (virtually alone in the world) all UN resolutions condemning the settlements.  Israel is the largest foreign recipient of US aid, and Obama has raised the level of aid after each of Israel’s three major massacres against Gaza since he took office, even though Israel is a super-rich nuclear state already armed to the teeth.  Robert Fantina points out that while “the average cost of tuition to earn a bachelor’s degree [in Israel] is $2,537.00 in U.S. dollars … [i]n the U.S., the average tuition for a bachelor’s degree is $29,408.00.”  Apparently, the US prioritizes even the war crime of colonization over the education of its own citizenry.  But, considering analyst Finian Cunningham’s point that the “weaponization of ignorance” is one of the deadliest arrows in the US quiver, and that the US itself is the largest remaining settler-colonial society, still repressing the native populations and selling off their land for resource extraction, this shouldn’t confuse.  

The Rude Pundit regards all of the "education miracle" in New Orleans as just "smoke and mirrors".  I've heard education is better but people still hate the Governor for making the state a basket case.  This is cognitive dissinence.  Real Estate prices in New Orleans are higher, but race relations are worse and there are more people in poverty than ever before.  When President Obama wanted to visit New Orleans, Governor Bobby Jindell told him not to mention things like climate change or disasterous Ecology.  So he attacks the president's politics, and then tells him not to say anything "political".  It's like the governor was looking for theater and not real substance here.  Others have spoken more eloquently about the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina far better than I have here.

My solution to the inheritance and gift tax situation differs from that of Washington’s blog.  I think all taxes in this area should be related to income the person already has.  For instance if I get $29,000 from playing on Jeopardy I think we should look at the income tax bracket I am and decided whether a person earning $29,000 should pay any federal income tax.  If not then I get to keep it all.  I think the rate for my getting ten thousand from a lucky poker night at Las Vegas should be radically different from if Donald Trump earned the same amount.  I don’t put death and inheritance taxes on the same moral plane as “unearned income” such as stock dividends and bond interest.  This is because these are capital related- - and I might agree that these should be taxed at the highest rates- - possibly over and above earned income.  The figure of 45% comes to mind as a figure used in Europe.  There is an old adage that the government taxes activities it wants to discourage and gives monetary incentives for activities they want to encourage, such as charity giving.  The ninety percent figure suggested in the blog is a nightmare out of Hell for sure.  I think there are more civilized ways to increase revenue by eliminating deductions for the rich, and encouraging the many poor among us to take full advantage of deductions we used to have prior to 1986.  Clearly we want to encourage borrowing in this climate and encouraging lending and investment and discourage hoarding.  I discussed other changes in the tax code in one of my recent postings.

On “rewind” they said that on this August 29, 2015 it’s the anniversary of “War” by Edmond Starr going number one in 1970.  I thought the song was popular earlier in the summer.  But as to the date with the Beatles, August 29^th  1959 is the date the “Beatles as we know them” began playing at the Casbah Club run by Mona Best, who had this son (Pete) who played drums.  The Beatles consisted of John, Paul, George, and Ken Brown, but no drummer.  John Lennon said that the Beatles didn’t need a drummer because they were just so naturally rhythmical.  It was also this weekend in 1970 that Ruben Salazar was hit with a tear gas canister by the LAPD and died.  And they televised the coroner’s inquest and ruled it “Death at the hands of another”.

This morning there was a University of Indiana (?) debate where liberals dominated on the topic of Citizen’s United.  Both sides argued well.   The whole thrust of our side of course is "Corporations are NOT people and so do NOT have all those rights.  And to preserve the democracy rights we humans DO have, it's necessary to point out that corporations are Not People.  Capish?  We had tomato soup again for lunch, and turkey sandwiches and a pasta salad.  We had honeydew for dessert.  I had Shawn Hannity on.  In terms of Days of our Lives it’s getting too crazy.  They showed the scene of someone lying in an alley perhaps dead, and perhaps it was Bo.  Caroline had a bad dream she told Victor of.  And we meet Kayla’s son Joey for the first time now that he’s in boarding school.  Then Patch makes an appearance a minute later.  (This is a guy who used to be a regular till the summer of 1990)  It’s like a guessing game.  Is any of this stuff connected?  For instance - - at the same time Aden is giving Hope an engagement ring.  And there is a hint that perhaps Clyde Weston had Serena murdered to make Benjamin look better and get Chad permanently out of the way.  So does Clyde murder innocent people in cold blood "Just to make a point"? (Benjamin and Chad are rivals for Abigail's affections) Meanwhile Stephano is still maintaining anger against Chad.  Then I checked the courtyard- - and nobody was out there and I put two and two together.

We had a resident’s council meeting today in a dining room getting hotter by the minute.  There was talk about not opening up the windows because the kitchen has been complaining about flies in the food.  That new cook is in trouble with Sarah because the food is supposedly too spicy and perhaps greasy, for people’s delicate digestive system.  But I would just say that diaria with me is NOT related to food content but rather who is infected when they prepare it.  It’s viruses and not spicing.  I was particularly in praise of the soups now.  Sarah had a lot to say about the need for a daily shower around here.  They are taking away Daniel’s radio because he plays it loud all hours of the day and night and David Shaner can’t sleep.  They seemed to intone that it’s a whole different staff who are caregivers as opposed to housekeepers.  I guess Sandy hasn’t worked here in several months.  Yadera left here because she got a better job offer somewhere else.  Good for her- - but it’s our loss.  Attendance was definitely up today.  They reviewed a lot of “old business” from the previous month- evidently a busy meeting I missed.  The luau has been postponed till late September.  And any beach trips are postponed till then too because as Sarah explains “This hot weather isn’t good and people have sun sensitivity with their medications” – and I guess heat stroke too.  I might prefer cooler weather myself since I don’t think we’re going in the water.  They wheeled the cart in for a single glass of iced tea.   I was going to remark- but didn’t that if we’re so concerned about heat, how come we don’t have ice cream nearly as often as we used to a couple of months ago.  I didn’t know there were regulations about just plain ordinary ice.  “Senior” places like ours aren’t supposed to have it because old people will choke on it.  But there are a lot of “not old” people living here.

Dissimalarities between the Crash of 2008 and 2015

It seems as if economic Freedom is never voluntarily shared by the oppressor.  It must be demanded by the ones who are oppressed.  Many call that socialism but it's the system we had from 1935 to about 1981, and it worked.  My motto is, "If it works, don't fix it".  People saw the Wall Street demonstrations in the fall of 2011 not as a demand for ethical accountability, but it played in the media as a bunch of later day socialists just greedy to "tear the rich down".   Judy called it "The poor coveting what the rich have".  If it were such an important Christian doctrine it's funny how Jesus never taught it.  Clearly these people "trust in their riches" and that clearly is taught against all through the Bible.  But these people don't know what they want.  If you'd have asked the Romney campaign they'd have said no inflation and a forty dollar an oil price, and a stable gold price and a continually rising stock market and employment rate- - were just what the doctor ordered.  We were promised that under Romney.  And if he were President now he'd be taking credit for the economic progress we have had.  But what we have now is clearly strange.  There was another blog lamenting the strong US dollar now.  Yes, my friends, this is now a bad thing.  "As strong as a dollar" is no longer a complement but a curse.  The world is coming to an end because inflation is down and oil prices are at multi year lows, and gold is reasonable.  What is wrong with this picture?  One blog yesterday pointed out all the dissimilarities between this crash of 2015 and the market crash of 2008.  For one thing the “bag of tricks” the government used the last time, won’t work this time around.  So in a way things are worse now since the obvious things we won't do.  If we mandated overtime, employers would go out and hire on more people because it would be cheaper.  If the unearned income tax rate weren't so low, then companies would invest in new plant and equipment because that would be better for then AND the people they'd hire.  If we didn't reward the shipping of our jobs off to China and Vietnam, there would be more jobs here and fewer people on food stamps and welfare.  If the ECO's didn't have such a low tax rate now with their stock options and all- - the price of common stocks wouldn't be artificially inflated giving a totally deceptive picture of the strength, or lack of it, in this economy.  A strong dollar could be made even stronger if somehow interest rates were raised to make the US dollar an even better investment.  But today they are calling a strong US dollar and low petroleum prices as bad things and "destabelizing the world economy.  It's almost as if they are prepared to blame the next war on low oil prices.  Carley Feurina in a generally BAD speech did say ONE good thing.  She said "If you reward bad behavior than you'll only get MORE bad behavior.  And with Obama and the Republicans, we are seeing highly entrenched bad behavior.  But the solution is not that hard to implement.  But like Martin Luther King said "But the people have to demand it".   Sol Allinsky may or may not have been a socialist, but what he did was instruct the common people in the art of productive Protesting.  We need a whole lot more of that today.

 OK I have Norman Goldman on now.  There is a severe refugee problem in Germany and a few other countries such as Hungary.  People are emigrating from the old Yugoslavian region due to famine and oppression and lack of drinking water.  Norman says “It takes a lot of desperation for these people to pull up stakes and leave their homeland”.   Germany has a population of 82 million according to Norm, or just over a quarter of the population of the United States.  And yet Germany has just this year absorbed 800 thousand refugees.  And there is a lot of blow-back from the native population.  The US isn’t the only place where this is the case, and our problem is not nearly as severe as Germany per capita.  This is the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s assault on the city of New Orleans where “Brownie” was commended by President Bush as having done a good job.  This fall is the turning point politically with me, when all of the torture in Iraq and also the illegal spying and all of that first came to light, which turned me once and for all against the Bush Administration.  It was also slowly dawning on me that the whole Iraq War might turn out to be a total waste.  As to New Orleans- - nobody handled that problem very well.  There was a lot of sheer whining on a Federal, State, and local levels where nobody seemed to want to take responsibility.  “Refuging” is the new word of the day.  (Drum roll)  I would remind you that the crisis of summer 2014 was from Central American nations with refugees only traveling through Mexico to get to the United States.  Mexico wouldn’t have them.

Now there are over a hundred “maternity motels” where these Chi Com women come to have babies.  It’s not a crime to do it, but if you instruct them to lie about their intensions or to be deceitful, then you are criminally liable.  According to the conservatives, the author of the fourteenth amendment says that “He never means the birthright amendment was ever meant to apply to foreigners.  I haven’t come up with a successful retort to that yet.  I hear stories about people being raised to be spies by emersing them in the culture of the United States and getting ordinary jobs to “infiltrate” but they are really loyal to the USSI or the Chi Coms or whoever.

Back when we were young, in the sixties there were PSA’s on television.  Public Service Announcements.  There were slogans “Only you can prevent forest fires” and there were other ads not to be a litter bug, and there were others telling us to “Drive defensively”.   But since TV stations are no longer required to serve in the public interest, we don’t have those any more.  But it would seem that playing regular anti firearms messages might make the point solidly.

It's been a long time since I've heard from the Federation or any of those dead rock stars I used to mention all the time.  If I knew what the deal was I'd tell you.  Maybe I'm not smoking cigarettes enough.  We know how I've cut back smoking with the worst personal financial drought- - perhaps ever in my life.

The Loss Of Our Freedoms

An earlier blog headline was "Worse than Orwell".  We are in a period even darker and more intrusive then even George Orwell imagined, so you have an idea how bad it is.  Most of this article is about the loss of our fourth and fifth amendment freedoms.  But we have three short paragraphs for you first.

This guy from the congressional budget office says the deficit will be 429 billion dollars and 59 billion less than last year’s and will be a small percentage of the GDP than last year.  But there seems to be an underlying theme of increased debt despite increased tax revenues because government outlays are high- - despite the definite decline in “discretionary spending”.

You know about that early morning shooting in a Virginia TV studio of a 24 year old female reporter and a 27 year old camera man.  It was a disgrunteled Black guy that did it- - so you see - sometimes black guys can go off their rocker too.  It's that deadly mix of mental illness and availability of firearms that seems unique to this country.

I was out smoking but then decided to tune in “Rhapsody in Black”.  I’d heard the show announced when Joe’s radio had KPFK on.  This day is was August 1954, which is the earliest date I’ve ever heard for that show.  (That I’m aware of)  There were five songs that I recognized.  There were “Honey Love”, “Sha-boom”, “Good Night, Sweet Heart, Good Night” and “Hearts of Stone”, and also “Cherry Cherry Pie”.   I agree that the black group version of “Hearts” wasn’t as well known as the one by the Charms.  One surprise was the original version of “Love Me”, which Elvis sang- - done very differently.  They played a tribute to Willy Mayes.  They had a woman “Looking for her daddy, with that big sliding thing” and also a song about “I’m not Drunk; I’m just drinking”.   The last few minutes of the show they played some slightly more recent songs from the early sixties.  This guy was a HS Freshmen in 1954. 

By John Whitehead, constitutional and civil rights attorney, the Rutherford Institute.

REPRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION - YUK - YUK
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”—Martin Luther King Jr.
There’s an ill will blowing across the country. The economy is tanking. The people are directionless, and politics provides no answer. And like former regimes, the militarized police have stepped up to provide a façade of law and order manifested by an overt violence against the citizenry.

Despite the revelations of the past several years, nothing has changed to push back against the American police state. Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be choked out by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

Despite the recent outrage and protests, nothing has changed to restore us to our rightful role as having dominion over our bodies, our lives and our property, especially when it comes to interactions with the government.

Forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases—these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. Thus far, the courts have done little to preserve our Fourth Amendment rights, let alone what shreds of bodily integrity remain to us.

Indeed, on a daily basis, Americans are being forced to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States.

In other words, we are all guilty until proven innocent.

Worst of all, it seems as if nothing will change as long as the American people remain distracted by politics, divided by their own prejudices, and brainwashed into believing that the Constitution still reigns supreme as the law of the land, when in fact, we have almost completed the shift into fascism.

In other words, despite our occasional bursts of outrage over abusive police practices, sporadic calls for government reform, and periodic bouts of awareness that all is not what it seems, the police state continues to march steadily onward.

Such is life in America today that individuals are being threatened with arrest and carted off to jail for the least hint of noncompliance, homes are being raided by police under the slightest pretext, and roadside police stops have devolved into government-sanctioned exercises in humiliation and degradation with a complete disregard for privacy and human dignity.

Consider, for example, what happened to Charnesia Corley after allegedly being pulled over by Texas police for “rolling” through a stop sign. Claiming they smelled marijuana, police handcuffed Corley, placed her in the back of the police cruiser, and then searched her car for almost an hour. They found nothing in the car.

As the Houston Chronicle reported:

Returning to his car where Corley was held, the deputy again said he smelled marijuana and called in a female deputy to conduct a cavity search. When the female deputy arrived, she told Corley to pull her pants down, but Corley protested because she was cuffed and had no underwear on. The deputy ordered Corley to bend over, pulled down her pants and began to search her. Then…Corley stood up and protested, so the deputy threw her to the ground and restrained her while another female was called in to assist. When backup arrived, each deputy held one of Corley’s legs apart to conduct the probe.

As shocking and disturbing as it seems, Corley’s roadside cavity search is becoming par for the course in an age in which police are taught to have no respect for the citizenry’s bodily integrity.

For instance, 38-year-old Angel Dobbs and her 24-year-old niece, Ashley, were pulled over by a Texas state trooper on July 13, 2012, allegedly for flicking cigarette butts out of the car window. Insisting that he smelled marijuana, he proceeded to interrogate them and search the car. Despite the fact that both women denied smoking or possessing any marijuana, the police officer then called in a female trooper, who carried out a roadside cavity search, sticking her fingers into the older woman’s anus and vagina, then performing the same procedure on the younger woman, wearing the same pair of gloves. No marijuana was found.

David Eckert was forced to undergo an anal cavity search, three enemas, and a colonoscopy after allegedly failing to yield to a stop sign at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Cops justified the searches on the grounds that they suspected Eckert was carrying drugs because his “posture [was] erect” and “he kept his legs together.” No drugs were found.

Leila Tarantino was subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic during a routine traffic stop, while her two children—ages 1 and 4—waited inside her car. During the second strip search, presumably in an effort to ferret out drugs, a female officer “forcibly removed” a tampon from Tarantino. Nothing illegal was found. Nevertheless, such searches have been sanctioned by the courts, especially if accompanied by a search warrant (which is easily procured), as justified in the government’s pursuit of drugs and weapons.

Meanwhile, four Milwaukee police officers were charged with carrying out rectal searches of suspects on the street and in police district stations over the course of several years. One of the officers was accused of conducting searches of men’s anal and scrotal areas, often inserting his fingers into their rectums and leaving some of his victims with bleeding rectums. Halfway across the country, the city of Oakland, California, agreed to pay $4.6 million to 39 men who had their pants pulled down by police on city streets between 2002 and 2009.

It’s gotten so bad that you don’t even have to be suspected of possessing drugs to be subjected to a strip search.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Florence v. Burlison, any person who is arrested and processed at a jail house, regardless of the severity of his or her offense (i.e., they can be guilty of nothing more than a minor traffic offense), can be subjected to a strip search by police or jail officials without reasonable suspicion that the arrestee is carrying a weapon or contraband.

Examples of minor infractions which have resulted in strip searches include: individuals arrested for driving with a noisy muffler, driving with an inoperable headlight, failing to use a turn signal, riding a bicycle without an audible bell, making an improper left turn, engaging in an antiwar demonstration (the individual searched was a nun, a Sister of Divine Providence for 50 years). Police have also carried out strip searches for passing a bad check, dog leash violations, filing a false police report, failing to produce a driver’s license after making an illegal left turn, having outstanding parking tickets, and public intoxication. A failure to pay child support can also result in a strip search.

It must be remembered that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was intended to prevent government agents from searching an individual’s person or property without a warrant and probable cause (evidence that some kind of criminal activity was afoot). While the literal purpose of the amendment is to protect our property and our bodies from unwarranted government intrusion, the moral intention behind it is to protect our human dignity.

Unfortunately, the indignities being heaped upon us by the architects and agents of the American police state—whether or not we’ve done anything wrong—don’t end with roadside strip searches. They’re just a foretaste of what is to come.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government doesn’t need to strip you naked by the side of the road in order to render you helpless. It has other methods, less subtle perhaps but equally humiliating, devastating and mind-altering, of stripping you of your independence, robbing you of your dignity, and undermining your rights.

With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which we have little real control over our lives. As Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone and an insightful commentator on human nature, once observed, “We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”

Indeed, not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on.

In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp—call it what you will, the meaning is the same: in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom.

Government surveillance, police abuse, SWAT team raids, economic instability, asset forfeiture schemes, pork barrel legislation, militarized police, drones, endless wars, private prisons, involuntary detentions, biometrics databases, free speech zones, etc.: these are mile markers on the road to a fascist state where citizens are treated like cattle, to be branded and eventually led to the slaughterhouse.

If there is any hope to be found it will be found in local, grassroots activism. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., it’s time for “militant nonviolent resistance.”

First, however, Americans must break free of the apathy-inducing turpor of politics, entertainment spectacles and manufactured news. Only once we are free of the chains that bind us—or to be more exact, the chains that “blind” us—can we become actively aware of the injustices taking place around us and demand freedom of our oppressors.