Dec 18, 2017

December 18, 2017: System is Rigged, Conservative Bias, A Mighty Hill


In a December 3, 2017 email, former Florida congressman Alan Grayson made a clear case for conservative bias in the electoral system and it's not what you think. Here is his argument in its entirety:

The system is rigged, because to win, Democrats need more votes than Republicans do.

Seriously.

In two of the last five Presidential elections, the Democrat won the popular vote, and lost the election.  (In fact, the last time that any Presidential candidate, winner or loser, won more than 53% of the vote was in 1984.)  The explanations for winning the popular vote and losing the electoral vote don’t end with the “butterfly ballot,” or “Pizzagate.”

What would happen if the Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates received exactly the same number of votes, nationwide?  Very likely, the Republican would win.
  
The Cook Political Report’s “Partisan Voting Index” (PVI) measures how states and congressional districts vote differently from the nation as a whole, based on the last two Presidential elections.  The “blue” states are “D+”; the “red” states are “R+”; the “purple” states are “even.”  If a state has a “D+2” PVI, that means that if the vote in the country as a whole is tied, that state would favor the Democratic candidate by 52% to 48%.

Thanks to the GOP’s domination of small states, there are 27 R+ states, 20 D+ states, and three that are even.  The R+ states give the Republicans 262 electoral votes, just eight short of a win, while the D+ states give the Democrats only 242 electoral votes.  Among the three even states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, the Republican wins with either Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, while the Democrats have to win both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Advantage: GOP.

In the Senate, the small states and the large states each have two votes.  There is one Senator for every 300,000 Wyomingites, and one Senator for every 20,000,000 Californians.  The fact that there are 27 R+ states and only 20 D+ states means that if the national votes are even, there would be something like 57 Republican Senators and only 43 Democratic Senators.  The GOP’s advantage in the smaller states puts them close to a filibuster-proof majority, when the national vote is even.  To get to a 50-50 Senate, the Democrats have to win nationwide by around six points.

Advantage: GOP.

In the House, gerrymandering gives the GOP a huge advantage.  The GOP’s control of many state governments has allowed it to “pack” Democrats into a small number of Congressional districts, while spreading a solid majority of Republicans (usually 57% to 43%) in numerous districts.  That’s why the Pennsylvania delegation, an “even” state, is 12-5 GOP, and the Michigan delegation, a “D+” state, is 9-5 GOP.

Nationwide, there are 238 R+ House seats, eight even seats, and only 189 D+ seats.  (Republicans hold only eight D+ seats, and Democrats hold only nine R+ seats.) 

218 seats make a majority.  The Democrats would have to win every D+ seat; every even seat; every R+1, R+2, R+3 seat; and at least one R+4 or worse seat to win that majority.

Advantage: GOP.

So the system is, in fact, rigged against the Democrats.  We need more votes than they do, just to break even.  How can we possibly make that happen?

Turnout.

Only 22% of Hispanics are Republicans.  But last year, only 48% of Hispanics voted.

Only 33% of voters under the age of 25 are Republicans.  But last year, only 43% of those young voters voted.

We have to get more Democrats to vote.  When Democrats vote, Democrats win.

Courage,

Alan Grayson”

Additionally, there are other structural forms of conservative bias, principally state and local governments. Since county lines are drawn geographically instead of by populations—there are more rural county governments than urban. Therefore, there are more conservative office holders in this country. More county judges, prosecutors, commissioners and the like giving the GOP a much deeper bench upon which to draw candidates for state and federal offices.

Yes it is a mighty hill to climb with the GOP always on the Democratic side of midfield. This is why we must organize, proselytize, and resist.

Impeach and Imprison.





December 17, 2017: Case Against Fox, Minions of Disgustus, Obstruction of Justice


It is clear that Fox News, otherwise known as Russian Affiliated Television (RAT), is a clear accomplice in the ongoing obstruction of justice.”
----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

State-run television, otherwise known as Russian Affiliated Television, otherwise known as Faux News, alias Fox News has been squealing like a stuck pig over the weekend. The Mueller investigation draws its nets ever more tightly about the neck of our very own Caesar Disgustus creating absolute panic in the ranks. Screaming foul and screeching like banshees in the wind, the likes of “Fox and Friends” (as if Murdoch has any friends), and Seen Hannity claim 'bias' in the investigation with 'guests' appearing and likening the FBI with the old KGB or Gestapo. Lately they have been claiming that there is an organized 'coup' in the works designed to overthrow the 'will of the people' and, therefore, nullify the last election. Never mind that Mueller is a known Republican, as was James Comey. Never mind that the Mueller investigation was set up by the very agents of Caesar Disgustus himself. Disgustus, however, now finds himself cornered by these very agents not reckoning that honesty, integrity, and a dogged determination to follow the facts and evidence—traits wholly lacking in the White House. Now we find that the venom has spread from hate radio to RAT television to the very chambers of the congress as Rescumlicans on the House Judiciary Committee parrot the nonsense filling the airwaves and threatening contempt of congress charges against any federal official who has the guts to stand up to them.

Let us make no mistake here. The minions of Disgustus, parroting hate radio are fast becoming accessories to the obstruction of justice and as such should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It has been largely agreed that one cannot indict a sitting president. The rationale for this position is that to do so would violate the separation of powers that theoretically exists between the three branches of government and that to indict would mean that the Judicial Branch would, in effect, be declaring jurisdiction over the Executive. This, in my youth, was the general understanding, but admittedly the question has never been resolved and with the federal courts re-writing fundamental law in recent decades one is never quite certain. Nevertheless, the minions of Disgustus are presently laying the foundation for the firing of Special Counsel Mueller and ending the investigation through false claims of bias and violating legal procedures.
Or, alternately, discrediting the investigation so that when Mueller does issue his conclusions to the Congress and the people, the idiot wrong both within Congress and without will find cause to discount the conclusions and not act upon the recommendations. Either way, the investigation is therefore stymied

Since impeachment is necessary before charges are brought against the idiot-in-chief such action producing such outcomes would, therefore, abort any impeachment proceedings resulting in no charges being brought and Justice effectively obstructed.

Let's make no mistake about this. RAT television and the minions on hate radio as well as within the tin-hat fringe of the Rescumlican Party are, by their behavior, obstructing justice.

Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, Limbaugh and his ilk on hate radio as well as members of Congress participating in this smear of the FBI and the Mueller investigation should be charged with obstruction after the fact and face prosecution.

Impeach, Convict, Imprison.


Dec 11, 2017

December 10, 2017: Russian Affiliated Television (R.A.T.), Murdoch's Slime Machine, Hand it to Putin


Fox (Faux) News is nothing more than Russian Affiliated Television (R.A.T)”.
----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”


The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller proceeds, and is slowly closing in on the oval office. The recent revelations that former tRUMP foreign policy adviser George Papadopolous had pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I, and, more recently, the National Security Advisor to Caesar Disgustus has likewise copped a plea and is now cooperating with the investigations has hit the conservative community like a sledge hammer upon a tuning fork.

So, as predictable as the morning sunrise, Fixed Noise, Rupert Murdock's slime machine, is about the business of savaging both Mueller and his investigation as well as the FBI.

Sean (SEEN) Hannity, ever the reliable scumbag, ever the slime bucket for the cause, has taken to the airwaves condemning Mueller, protesting that he has no credibility and must step down. On his 'show' Hannity could be seen with a guest that with a straight face compared the FBI with the former Soviet KGB, if not the Guestapo, complaining of wiretaps and midnight raids. Hannity, limiting himself to simple charges of political bias, nevertheless nodded in agreement.

Never mind that both Mueller and former FBI director James Comey are life-long Republicans, that is until the recent emergence of Disgustus and his gang. Never mind that every 'institution' is filled with people who hold political beliefs and act upon them in their private lives. Never mind that the confessions of now two principles of possible colluding with the Russians and lying about it have given clear evidence substance behind the suspicions. Never mind that the professionals investigating these matters have experience and a long and noble track record of getting to the bottom of these things. Mueller has put together a first-rate team, including investigators who got to the bottom of the Enron scandal. Until now, no one has questioned the integrity of either Mueller or his investigation. Not until he started getting close to the truth.

But this is the problem for the White House. Disgustus knows he is guilty; Hannity and his corporate paymaster knows likewise that he is guilty; as do several brain-dead members of Congress, and that is why they have turned upon the authorities in an effort to lay the groundwork to discredit these investigations. The time of reckoning will, sooner or later, be upon us and the alternate universe of the idiot wrong will by then have done their work—discrediting the evidence, negating the facts, so that their knuckle-dragging constituencies can continue on their blessed paths of denial.

But in so doing, Faux News and the hate mongers on talk radio, InfoWars, Limbaugh and his ilk, will not only further enable Disgustus but will be material accomplices in the obstruction—by discrediting the facts—of justice. They will also be material accomplices of the Bannon-inspired efforts by Disgustus to discredit, diminish and besmirch everything about him.

You've got to hand it to Putin. He knows his 'useful idiot' very well, and the return upon his investments in this bastard 'presidency' are now obvious for all to see. Caesar Disgustus is our gift to Russia that keeps on giving.

Disgustus must go. It will be ugly, and the stench will linger for decades, but he must go.

Impeach and Imprison.



Dec 4, 2017

December 4, 2017: Those That Sent Us, Triple Whamy, Enabling the Swine


We must deliver something to those that sent us here”

----Senator Mitch McConnell, (R-Kentucky)

In this simple, declarative statement, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell laid out the justification for the worst tax legislation ever produced by the United States Senate.

Fearing the loss of their ill-gotten majority, Senate Rescumlicans, running roughshod and leapfrogging over all normal procedures rushed to produce something, anything, that they could take back to the people in order to justify their wretched existence. The 'people' in this case is not their constituencies, for McConnell was here referring not to the good people of Kentucky but to the real people who 'sent' him to the Senate—the billionaires, the Walton's, the Koch's, the Adelman's and Mercers as well as the giant national and multi-national corporations that fuel their campaigns and their policy stink-tanks. Here in one steaming pile of shit, the Senate presents the American people with the biggest transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest in the history of this country.

The details are, of course, sketchy. Having rushed this through without committee hearings, without informed debate—for the details of the bill were being altered up to the very last minute in order to fashion the 50 votes needed to gain passage. Finally, in the end, every Rescumlican save Bob Corker voted in favor. Gone were the 'principled' protests of John McCain, Susan Collins, and Jeff Flake. Gone were the so-called 'principles' of fiscal conservatism. Gone were the protests of the 'deficit-hawks' with the lone exception of the soon to retire Corker. All those 'principled' protests over the years, all those howls and screams over deficit spending, all the Rescumlican 'virtue' vanished in a flash as greed once again got the best of them.

This bill, of course, must be reconciled with the House version; and it is debatable at this point which steaming pile of shit stinks the most. The final bill sent to that great plutocrat posturing as populist, will nevertheless follow the general outline of transferring wealth through taxation from the working people of this country to the idle rich, societies parasites.

It will be presented, by the Liar-in-Chief, as a great Christmas present to the middle class. Of course, like anything else coming from this administration, this is a boldface lie. It will also be presented as a 'stimulus' bill benefiting everyone.

In fact it is neither. In fact the poor, the working poor, and the middle classes will experience a 'triple whammy' under the lash of this outrageous piece of legislation.

First, there will be a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest and the working classes to the idle rich, especially in the outlying years. By the middle of the next decade it has been estimated that over half the middle class will suffer significant tax increases, and those making less than ten thousand dollars a year could face up to a fifteen hundred dollar tax increase, while over 60 percent of the the tax relief goes to the top one per cent and corporations.

Secondly, no sooner will our very own Caesar Disgustus sign this bill and the Scums will be taking to the floors of the House and Senate demanding spending cuts in order to bring down the looming deficits. Programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, Head Start, farm subsidies and scores of others will suffer repeated assaults as the Scums use the mess they've made as a rationale for draconian cuts hurting the lower and middle classes, the very people who create—through their labor—our wealth in the first place.

Lastly, the Scums are presenting a 'stimulus' bill at a time when no need for such action can be demonstrated. With unemployment at a 17 year low, you can expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates much more steeply than would otherwise be the case, making the cost of consumer loans (a staple of middle class existence) more expensive and raising unemployment in an effort to 'cool' the economy and keep inflation low. Let us make no mistake about this. The Fed will view the increase in deficits as inflationary, regardless of the lack of any recent empirical connection, and will raise rates accordingly visiting hardship not upon the stock-jobbing vulchers, whose investments they are openly protecting, but upon the middle class upon whom the value of these stocks and bonds depend.

What is clear is that the middle class and the working poor are once again going to receive a beating by the Rescumlicans posturing as 'populist' tribunes of the working class. They are no such thing and neither is the head of their party. Disgustus will sign the bill into law. Disgustus, knowing nothing, will sign anything.

Something is better than nothing” chant the troglodytes that inhabit the Rescumlican Party. This is not always true, especially upon close examination of these tax bills. In this case nothing is better than this, nothing at all, for by doing nothing no further harm to the middle class would come. But the Scums are in need of a 'victory' any victory will do, especially if it pays off their corporate and billionaire paymasters. So, like common prostitutes, they will perform the service however enthusiastically, but they will be destroying the middle class and enabling Disgustus in the bargain; once again giving to little lord Fauntleroy something he doesn't deserve.

Impeach and Imprison.



Dec 1, 2017

December 1, 2017: Ever the Birdbrain, Degradation of Politics, Debasing our Nation.


Every day brings new outrages. Yesterday our very own Caesar Disgustus, ever the birdbrain,
'tweeted' out a message to his 40 or so million bots and followers involving, among other things, a video of one young adult attacking another in the Netherlands. One of the attackers, being of dark hair and complexion, is seen attacking and beating another young boy being blonde and fair skinned. This video, traced back to a far-wrong British nationalist group calling itself “Britain First”, purports to show a young Muslim assaulting a law-abiding Dutch citizen as a means of demonstrating that the Islamic hordes are upon us—yea even unto the streets of Amsterdam.

Of course, it is a fraud, with Disgustus and his ilk it is always a fraud. The two teens so embroiled were both Dutch nationals, both having been born in the country. Neither of them was Muslim. No matter, trolling the depths of the cesspool that is the internet, our intrepid 'president' can be daily found snorkeling in the cesspool of conspiracy and persecution, xenophobia and paranoia, leading him by degrees to white nationalist racial hatred and other far-wrong websites, regurgitating the contents on the anti-social media thereby giving this crap a legitimacy and gravitas that are our daily national obscenities.

This behavior presents a clear and present danger to the republic. For Disgustus by elevating the likes of Steve Bannon, speaking favorably of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, and puking up the contents of the dregs of the internet is debasing the office he holds by elevating the worst among us. Disgustus also quickly evoked simultaneous rebukes from both the Dutch Government and the British Prime Minister from whose country the offensive material emerged. Calling out “Britain First” as a xenophobic hate group Prime Minister May expressed shock that the president would uncritically re-post the offensive material, stating flatly that the Disgustus was wrong to bestow legitimacy upon such offensive nonsense.

This 'presidency' has degenerated to such depths that senior members of his own party have taken to the Senate floor and sounded the alarm. It is not often that a sitting 'president' conducts open warfare with senior members of his own party. Yet here we have Rescumlican senators, all of whom vote with this administration over 90 percent of the time, now openly at odds with our unrepentant Disgustus. Senator John McCain, his party's presidential nominee in 2008 has criticized Disgustus for his inflammatory behavior, his denigration of our intelligence and military services, his abuse of military veterans and their families, his weakening of our alliances and his handling of our conflict with North Korea. Senator Flake, John McCain's Arizona Senate colleague took to the Senate floor to lament the “coarseness of our leadership” and the “flagrant disregard for truth and decency” and that “reckless, outrageous and dangerous behavior is not a political strategy but simply reckless, outrageous and dangerous behavior.” Senator Flake concluded by telling his Senate colleagues that “degradation of our politics should not be seen as normal”.

It didn't end there. Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, first raised concerns that Disgustus was careening toward World War III, saying that the adults in the room, Secretary of State Tillerson, and Generals Hattis and Kelly all that keep us from outright chaos. Likening the White House to an “adult day care center” Senator Corker pointed out that “anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy”. Indeed the senator wrote the epitaph of this administration: “What he (tRUMP) will be remembered for,” concluded Corker, “with his constant untruth telling, is the debasing of our nation”.

That and for being Ye Public Ass.

Alert the day shift” at the 'adult day-care staff', and “obviously the day-shift hasn't reported for work”, replied Corker to Disgustus' 'tweet-storms' aimed at the Senator from Tennessee. It is time, for the good of the nation, to stuff Disgustus into a straight jacket and lead him off to well deserved solitary confinement.

Impeach and Imprison.




Nov 28, 2017

November 27, 2017: Pocahontas, Ever the Demagogue, Ultimate Vandal.



Aurora Borealis
The icy sky at night
Paddles cut the water
In a long and hurried flight
From the white man
to the fields of green
And the homeland
we've never seen.

 
They killed us in our tepee
And they cut our women down
They might have left some babies
Cryin' on the ground
But the firesticks
and the wagons come
And the night falls
on the setting sun.

 
They massacred the buffalo
Kitty corner from the bank
The taxis run across my feet
And my eyes have turned to blanks
In my little box
at the top of the stairs
With my Indian rug
and a pipe to share.”

                                                                 -----Neil Young “Pocahontas” (1)


All he had to do was get through a simple ceremony observed Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. He couldn't do even that, quickly turning a ceremony honoring the Navajo soldiers into an ugly, gratuitous slap at a political adversary by referring to her as “Pocahontas” in an effort to refer to the historical native American figure disparagingly. In doing so, our very own Caesar Disgustus simultaneously outraged both the Massachusetts senator and our entire native American populations.

The group of surviving Navajo soldiers who, during the Second World War, distinguished themselves by volunteering for service and using their native language in a successful effort to pass commands and signals in a 'code' that the Japanese found impenetrable, were brought to the White House in order to honor their services. Instead the ceremony was converted into yet another effort by this White House to communicate to its white nationalist base.

This morning, Joe Scarborough, on the MSNBC program “Morning Joe” held forth that this is not normal, that everything that has transpired in the last year or two has been the result of a 'blip', an abnormality occurring on election day 2016. This is a dangerous interpretation.

I have previously written about this at length. (2) This is not an aberration and the latest outrage by our very own public ass needs to be put in some context. On first blush it looked as if Disgustus had simply once again began to ramble and was soon off the rails. But look again at the video, here stood a group of native Americans underneath a portrait of president Andrew Jackson under whom the nation passed a law expelling the Cherokee, Seminole and other tribes from Georgia, Florida and other areas of the American Southeast forcing a march in the dead of winter which quickly became a 'death march' toward a homeland they'd never seen. (3)

It is no coincidence that the portrait of Jackson gazed down upon the ceremony, for Disgustus idolizes the seventh president of the United States. Jackson is celebrated in liberal circles for his 'populism', his so-called “Jacksonian Democracy” lauded by the likes of Arthur Schlessinger, but he also stands as one of the principle architects and practitioners of genocide and ethnic cleansing. There can be no doubt to which purposes the portrait, what part of the Jacksonian legacy, that Caesar Disgustus was drawing upon during this ceremony; another dog-whistle designed to denigrate those assembled and, by extension, the author of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and agency with which he is currently embroiled in yet another power struggle.

He has been attacking Warren for years, referring to the totally baseless charge that she had declared herself to be 1/32 native American when applying for college. Like many of us, anecdotal histories, passed on by relatives over the generations, led her to understand that she has native American lineage. I have no idea whether she has or not. It doesn't matter. In any case, at no time did she seek nor accept any financial aid, nor did it affect her acceptance or rejection when making application to colleges or universities. But Disgustus, ever the demagogue, has seized upon this urban legend and tagged her 'Pocahontas' as a means of conveying, through yet another dog-whistle, the message that somehow she didn't deserve her education, she doesn't deserve realizing the fruits of her accomplishment. It has become a dog-whistle conveying to his knuckle-dragging political base a larger charge than whites are discriminated against and that any acceptance or admission of a person of color into our larger community is illegitimate. “They” don't deserve to be here, brought into the corridors of power through ill-gotten means by liberals who have tipped the Ouija Board of life against them.

The senator castigated Disgustus saying “he had to throw out a racial slur”. The White House protested that it wasn't a racial slur but it is. To use the honorable figure of a revered member of our Native Americans as a means of denigrating someone. Let me be clear: Caesar Disgustus is the ultimate vandal: he debases everything he touches. Yesterday he accomplished, in a very short few minutes, the besmirching of an American Icon; making of Pocahontas a racial slur.

____________________

  1. August 8, 2017: Roads to Hell, Long and Tortuous Path,
    Reap the Whirlwind
  2. Ehle, John. “Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation” Copyright 1988 Anchor Books, Doubleday Dell Publishing Group New York. 424 pages.



Nov 6, 2017

November 5, 2017: Ye Public Ass, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Holding the Bag


The words president and  tRUMP go together like barn dance and polecat, or church and fart.”
              ----from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

Using the words tRUMP and president in the same sentence violates the sensibilities, for the stench that both precedes him and that lingers long after his departure betrays a corruption beyond anything in our national experience. Tales of sordid business dealing, racketeering and money-laundering await an anxious nation as the Mueller investigation proceeds apace. Today I want to focus instead upon the vandalism that this man is currently inflicting upon the presidency by behavior unbecoming the office.

To date one can envision several looming articles of impeachment:
  1. Collusion with a foreign adversary in order to subvert the duly constituted political process of a free republican government.
  2. Obstruction of justice by misleading, lying, fabricating, dissembling, removing from office several principle investigators, threatening possible material witnesses.
  3. Knowingly participating in the receiving of material assistance in the form of information and money from foreign nationals, many connected with organized crime.
  4. Failure to fulfill the oath of office by “Faithfully executing” the laws of the land, as in failure to enforce additional sanctions upon Russia, failure to enforce environmental protections, failure to enforce and support the Affordable Health Care Act, ad nauseum.
  5. Receiving gifts and payments from foreign governments and nationals by pressuring governments to do business with his hotels and resorts.
  6. And, last but not least: for conduct unbecoming, that is for BeingYe Public Ass.

It hasn't been enough that this man has been the most incompetent ass to preside over our government since at least James Buchanan. It hasn't been enough that this man has besmirched virtually everything he touches. It is that this man has been a national embarrassment, a national humiliation, a national obscenity while so doing. In short, a public ass.

It took years for Reagan and the Bushes to reduce the federal response to natural disasters. The response to hurricane Andrew late in George the Greater's administration and the greater failures of George the Lesser in response to hurricane Katrina proved low-water marks for both administrations ushering in, as they did, brief returns of Democratic dominance. But it took several years for the Rescumlicans to savage governance to the necessary degree in order to accomplish these objectives. With hurricanes Harvey and Irma having already savaged Texas and the Gulf Coast our Disgustus, still riding the headwinds of competent Democratic administration, was able to respond in a somewhat orderly and timely fashion. Not because of political leadership mind you (for our birdbrain spent his time 'tweeting' and playing golf), but because FEMA still had resources and institutional memory. But with hurricane Maria, there was no such response.

Why is anyone's guess but Keith Olbermann, among others, have pointed to the racism rampant in New York City during tRUMP's childhood as evidenced by the themes in the musical “West Side Story”and the movie “Twelve Angry Men”. Our Disgustus grew up in a New York was experiencing an explosion in immigration largely from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic and all to familiar ethnic conflicts emerged.

In any case tRUMP in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane blithely announced that he wasn't suspending the Jones Act—a federal law prohibiting intrastate shipment of goods from the United States to the islands on foreign ships. The act was intended and serves to protect what is left of the U.S. Merchant shipping and merchant marine but is often suspended in emergency. Not this time. Disgustus also announced that he would not use the military in response to the crisis, also a common practice in such circumstances. Normally a president would order the military to airlift food, water, generators, gasoline, medicine and medical equipment, engineers and construction equipment as well as other supplies in order to alleviate the suffering. Not so our very own Caesar Disgustus. He did send the hospital ship “Comfort” to San Juan but two weeks after the hurricane the ship with over 800 medical staff and scores of beds had only treated 40 patients.

What the country witnessed instead was the self-absorbed little Lord Fauntleroy twitting away, venting his spleen on the National Football League in an attempt to settle a score involving his attempt to become a team owner decades ago and being rebuffed by Commissioner Pete Rozelle and the other owners. Having been rejected by this exclusive club, tRUMP set about joining the now defunct United States Football League purchasing the New Jersey Generals and signing Georgia's Herschel Walker. After some marginal success tRUMP then went about pressuring the other owners to change the marketing strategy from playing games in the spring of the year to going directly up against the entrenched National Football League in the fall.

Now the NFL has, principally under Rozelle, emerged as such a dominant force, commandeering entirely not only every Sunday during its schedule but the holidays as well. Indeed the last such force to command these time slots was God himself. Nevertheless our intrepid fool led his band up against one of the most powerful monopolies in the nation, if not the world. Other owners in the league were skeptical, even fearful, knowing it would be a hard climb. But Disgustus, always the bully, always the cock-sure megalomaniac would—surprise--not listen. The result was a disaster. A bankruptcy and end of the endeavor leaving the owners no choice but to sue (always a tRUMP stratagem) the National Football league. They won the case but the NFL was fined only one dollar. The real strategy was, of course, to lead the USFL up against the NFL knowing that it would strain the other owners but in the wake of its collapse tRUMP would leverage his position and force his way into the NFL as the old American Football League had earlier done by forcing a merger. But this time the NFL was having none of it, for the stench of tRUMP so greatly offends the sensibilities. Walker moved on to the NFL and Disgustus and his business associates were left holding the bag.

I bring this up because now decades later we find the swine confronted with a full-blown national disaster involving himself instead with a feud with NFL players over kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police-state practices involving minorities. Here we find the birdbrain 'tweeting' away while an island is without drinking water or power, where millions are homeless and desperate for relief in an effort to besmirch an institution that had slighted him.
Finally, when this display of childishness created a public outcry, he was convinced by White House staff to make trip to the island resulting in video footage broadcast to the world in which he was seen tossing rolls of paper towels to the afflicted and speaking only of the 'great success' of the federal (read tRUMP's) response. Indeed pressed to rank the response on a scale of one to ten, tRUMP—ever the megalomaniac—of course gave himself a ten.

Lost in the imbroglio, of course, was the fact that the Rescumlicans were planning a 30% cut in FEMA funding in their upcoming budget, the first full budget of this administration. I bring this up because the full effect of his blinding ignorance has yet to be felt. Had these storms ravaged this country into the third or fourth year of this administration the full effect of tRUMP and his ilk would have born down upon the unsuspecting residents of Texas and the Gulf Coast as well—that is not upon the people who don't look or speak like Disgustus but upon those who do and vote for him.

But let us make no mistake about it. When it comes time to remove this cancer upon our nation one of the reasons must be that he is and remains a public ass.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day.

Impeach and Imprison









Oct 11, 2017

October 8, 2017: Autumn, Once Again




Autumn, Once Again

It’s been two cold winters
And hot long summers
Since we celebrated
The arrival of spring

The trees now turn
the cold wind falls
setting leaves, a-chatter
a ritual rattle

I’ve made it
once again
But it’s never
quite the same

Momma don’t go
Daddy come home.

---
To Kate Camfield.  December 11, 1959-October 8, 2015.
And my step-father Vernon Lyles, whom today we laid to rest. 
And, lastly, to John Lennon for the coda

Sep 8, 2017

September 7, 2017: Time nor Place, Sowing Confusion, No Idea


 “Politics is a performing art involving timing and context.”
                        ----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

It is the reason that Reagan was so successful.  It is the reason that he was called the ‘Teflon’ president.  Reagan understood that politics is a performance art and, like any artist, understood that timing and context are everything.  Not so the dolt now occupying his seat. 

Nowhere is this more dangerously on display than in the ongoing disputes involving North Korea.  At a time when Disgustus, full of bombast and sounding like some iron age god, warns of ‘fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen”, threatens a deeply insecure, indeed paranoid regime.  At a time when he openly declares that the “time for talking is at and end”; at a time when he threatens any country currently doing business with the regime with retaliation and sanctions, we find him openly criticizing our South Korean ally accusing Seoul of “appeasing” the adversary and threatening to end the current trade agreement with South Korea. 

These are seriously mixed messages sowing confusion among our friends while outraging the rest of the world community. 

Clearly something must be done with our trade agreements.  Since ratifying five years ago the current accord with South Korea, an agreement that was supposed to lower if not eliminate altogether our trade deficit with the country, the trade imbalance has doubled.  This is not the outcome intended and it has strained relations between the United States and its ally.  Addressing this issue is important for it has cost, by some estimates, 90,000 jobs in the United States and added to our standing as the world’s largest debtor nation.  But this, given the severity of the crisis over nuclear and missile testing by the North, is not the time.  Nor, perhaps, is South Korea the place for our trade imbalance is much more serious if one looks to either Japan, China, or the European Union. 

But Disgustus, perhaps seeking the ultimate diversion from his Russian troubles, has done his utmost to inflame the situation, now saying that we will not trade with any country doing business with North Korea.  Since this involves not only China but also India, Russia, Japan and a host of other nations it is clearly an empty threat; for such action would quickly bring not only the United States but the entire world financial structure to the ground.  While these actions might finally fulfill the masturbatory fantasies of one Steve Bannon they would do nothing to either address our economic woes nor keep the peace. 

In recent weeks, especially in the disgusting months of July and August we have witnessed and increasingly unhinged chief executive as he delivered a campaign speech to a Boy Scout Jamboree, and act for which the Boy Scouts was moved to apologize; we have seen him address a graduation of Coast Guard cadets using the occasion to whine about how he is treated in the press; we have seen him stand before a gathering of law enforcement officers and condemn
ObamaCare and call for the reinstatement of police brutality; we have seen him take the care and time to head off to Missouri to campaign against a Democratic senator while a region and a city drown; we have seen him speak to the nation and draw a false equivalency between the voices of hate and domestic terror and the forces that gather to protest them.  We have seen him, as ever the ingrate he is, call the White House, the very symbol of the American Republic, “a dump”. 

Clearly, this man knows not who he now is or the place that he now defiles.  Disgustus has no idea of time and place; no idea of what is appropriate and what is not; no idea of what is decent and honorable and what is corrupt and disgusting. The emperor does not wear well the emperor’s raiment. 

Evidence is gathering that the country is having its fill.  MSNBC recently aired video of a focus group gathered in Pittsburg a city that had voted for Clinton.  Gathered in the cross section of ten voters were four that had voted for tRUMP, none of whom support him now.  One lady said that “of course I knew he was crazy, but I expected that he would at least be professional, he’s not presidential, he’s not even professional”.   Another said that he had hoped he would be a great executive, delegating to competent executives and running the government like the businessman they all thought he was.  Clearly, he had bought the illusion presented on the ‘reality’ television show “The Apprentice”.  With tRUMP, illusion—façade—is everything.  Then there was the man who said he voted for tRUMP but regretted it telling the interviewer that he wished Disgustus was on the other side because of the damage being done by this man to the causes he holds so dear.  They are not alone.  Disgustus has lost, in the last month alone, 9% of the white male voters without a college education and fully 56% say that he is “pulling the country apart”.  He is also tearing apart our alliances and the fragile, if enduring, peace that they have produced.

Donald J. tRUMP has no idea.  He has no idea of time and place.  He has no idea of where he is nor what he is doing.  He is the ultimate vandal realizing the wet dream of the “Generation of Swine” to bring the whole house down about our feet. 


Impeach and Imprison.