Tuesday, February 20, 2018                                            11:55 AM

Rock in the River   (2018Feb21)

Well, I don’t know. I mean, sure, it’s a serious concern—we Americans must take more care in discerning truth from agit-prop. But, overall, I’d still rather live in a democracy, which can be disrupted by lies, than an autocracy like Putin’s, which could be destroyed overnight by the truth. It’s funny—both Putin and Trump consider lying to be an important tool in their ‘work’.

I’ve always been an honest man—not due to any excess of virtue, but simply because lying well is not easy and I am terrible at it. Also, I don’t see much sense in it—lies are so temporary—they are self-inflicted land-mines that we give to the future. Every lie sets a clock ticking, a mystery-clock that decides when the truth will come back to bite us.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018                                                7:52 PM

Some complain that the Parkland student survivors aren’t gun experts. O yes they are—the only ones who know more are their fallen classmates. I’m glad I’ve never been in a crowded classroom, hearing gunfire and screaming, seeing the blood and the panic—and the bodies of my friends on the floor. And if those complainers were referring to experts on what happens, on the other side of the barrel—I mean, really—who gives a fat fuck? Are you serious?

I’m fed up with the contrived sanctity of the Second Amendment. The Constitution has been amended before. (Did you know that the original version prohibited any kind of income tax? Why is it okay to throw that one out, just for bookkeeping purposes—but we have to keep the 2^nd, weekly massacres notwithstanding?)

Are we not in the twenty-first century? Is it just me, who blithely walks down the street, from country lane to midtown sidewalk, unarmed and unafraid? Who the hell in this country so desperately needs to be armed? And why aren’t we doing anything to protect these people from whatever it is they are afraid of?

Canadians own nearly as many guns as we do— Americans are simply violent. Americans are violent because there is a paucity of love in America. The frenetic grasping at dollars has made it impossible for Americans to be good people. Lobbyists have slowly but surely created a legal landscape that fines one person for feeding the homeless, and rewards another for using public-education funding to segregate rich kids into private schools.

Even American charities have a hard time letting any of the donations slip through their own hands to the actual charitable works. I think it is a slow rot that has been going on since the Cold War—America’s rich assholes have always outdone the sincere idealists in messaging.

Look at the stupid things Americans have ‘debated’ for decades—whether women and minorities deserve equal rights and opportunities—whether a decent man keeps his hands to himself, or not—whether one sect of a two-thousand-year-old religion takes precedence over scientific observation. It’s hard to imagine that people will still argue these self-evident choices, even today, and that the rest of us don’t break out laughing.

This is no coincidence. Rich people perpetuate this garbage ‘uncertainty’ over clear ethical choices—and not because they really care—no—they do it because they glory in the feel of authority, the sense that they influence the world. Of course, they have to overlook the way they fuck with everyone else—never accomplishing anything positive. It’s a problem—being compulsively drawn to exerting authority—it happens a lot, but it is not a healthy situation.

At rare, random times, a person with authority may have the patience and goodwill to use power to build something good, or to help ease people’s lives. Far more often, sadly, authority boils down to making someone else miserable to prove that one can. Even sadder, such people are often without close friends whom may point this out.

You guys—you gotta start voting.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018                                             5:14 PM

Count The Ways   (2018Feb13)

Given the virtual tsunami of problems with our Fake President, I’d like to try to at least develop categorizations that will streamline our perception of his failings as Chief Executive. I hope to relieve some of the confusion his prolific wrong-doings create by their sheer number and daily occurrence.

Fraud

Begin with his refusal to show his taxes, middle with unexplained firing of many Federal DA’s, at least two of which were actively investigating Trump’s affairs prior to inauguration, and end with his refusal to obey the emoluments clause. Include the millions in rent Trump’s interests receive from the Chinese government’s bank—which is only one of many countries doing the same, with many other millions paid to Trump.

National Security

Where to start? Papadopoulos, Flynn, Sessions, Alt-Prop collusion, Comey, Nunes and his magic memo? Or Trump’s attempt, his first week, to unilaterally demilitarize Russia’s western border—one could start there, and follow with his media-blacked-out meetings with Putin and Kysliak, segueing to Trump’s full-on-illegal refusal to implement Congress’s sanctions against Russia, and Trump’s stubborn ignoring of current Russian efforts to pollute the 2018 elections. Top it off with a cherry—most of the White House staff has no security clearance—nor any chance of ever getting one. Let’s face it—if he weren’t President, Trump would never get one, either.

Misogyny

Adultery (photographed), serial assault (confessed), accusers (20), sex offenders, abusers, and assaulters defended and befriended (several). His despicable lies about Hillary Clinton, or any other female Democrat, go far below the allowances made for politicking. He’s a pig—ask any woman who knows him. It’s revolting—I’m done with this part.

Bigotry

Long, long list here: the Central Park Five lynch-mongering, the questioning of a sitting president’s legitimacy, the enthusiastic urging of policemen to rough up their arrestees, the gleeful neglect of Puerto Rico after the hurricane (on-going)—I could go on, here, but let’s just summarize with the ‘shithole’ comment that so aptly defines our Fake President. As with the previous category—ask any minority—it’s a long list and they know it best.

Falsehood

He lies 90% of the time. That’s not an insult, that’s a measured statistic. ‘Nuf said. Although I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that his lies are damaging in direct proportion to the import of the issue being lied about—and, as Fake President, Trump has a wide range of issues of great import—all of which he lies about with the same flippancy with which he lied about Obama’s birth certificate for eight years. (Of course, you get some crossover with these things—Trump’s Obama’s-birth-lie is as evil a bit of bigotry as it is evil in its falsehood.)

Dereliction

While Trump busies himself somewhat with wrongdoings, he neglects any of the duties of his office. Hundreds are fired from important posts. Agencies are defunded, or helmed by their arch-enemies, or both. Appointed posts are left vacant—not just a few, but more than half. Irresponsible spending bills and tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy are paired with billions taken from social services. The Fake President sleeps in, rises late, refuses to read (or can’t read) his daily briefings, so he has someone tap-dance the information for him. Alas, some details are overlooked in the process. Golf, anyone? I’m hungry… and bored. (Again, there is seeming crossover here with National Security, since this is exactly what Putin would want us to do.)

Ignorance

Our Fake President clearly has no knowledge of, or understanding of, the basic principles of our national government. He hasn’t the patience or the insight to even recognize the importance of such things—his only interest would be in how to pervert it to his own ends. He refuses to listen to his own intelligence infrastructure—the most powerful intelligence-gathering effort in history—because they still think Trump’s the patsy that Putin got elected. Trump can never accept that truth—and the Intel folks can’t magically un-know it, just to please the president, so—stand-off. Or should I say—bottleneck? His unfitness came with a vast built-in ignorance, but is now compounded by a self-imposed information black-out (which leaves much more time for golf).

Now, I don’t know for sure if this framework is complete. As with all things Trump, the insane filth of it eventuality saps the spirit. Let’s just call this a first draft, shall we? Indeed, even our subcategories have become a too-long, too-enmeshed list of accusations against an office-holder, of an office whose prior holders have all been the opposite of this Trump scumbag.

Trump is a Fraud, a National Security Threat, a Misogynist, a Bigot, a compulsive Liar, a Derelict-in-his-duty Commander-in-Chief, and an Ignoramus. He is not only all of these things—he is all of these things in depth, with little paisley flourishes of bullying and spoiled-infant behavior making a roiling, nauseating frame around this masterpiece of corruption and unfitness.

His defenders will take issue with all of these facts—they will show debate-skills and tap-dancing worthy of Washington’s most exclusive liar’s club, the official spokespersons. They will fast-talk you sufficiently that, if you want to stay on Trump’s side, you’ll feel reassured. But if none of it is true, then why do they need a propaganda machine to broadcast their alternative truths? Oh—that reminds me—I left out his attacks on free speech and free press—O, and the hate-speech against non-white immigrants—ach, there’s no end to this crap.

My question, Republicans, is this: How much longer are you going to offer us this shit sandwich and call it roast beef? Are you-all just relieved that Trump is such a trainwreck that nobody noticed those two (count’em, two) states’ gerrymandering cases that your own courts overturned, due to racism on a scientifically-planned, cartographic level? Most of you are as bad as Trump, simply handicapped by vestigial threads of the sense of shame.

I will never understand why you people are still considered a political party—and not the subversive, extremist cult you truly are. Shame on all of you un-American, treasonous, privileged, prejudiced fucks. If I’m not being too subtle.

Saturday, February 10, 2018                                             8:17 PM

Only the Truth   (2018Feb10)

“Only the truth can set you free.” St. Peter, I think. And so true. I love a good axiom. I’m used to the adult world having more regard for the truth—the truth doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we should lose track of—it’s as if some political party were trying to make ‘being an asshole’ a normal, okay thing. And there’s nothing more annoying than some asshole who lies right to your face—as if lies last forever.

Prominent men are dropping like flies, falling to long-overdue comeuppances (and public shaming) that the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements have brought to their ‘regular business practices’ of being pigs. I hear some of the more tone-deaf men trying to raise concern over the poor men who don’t get a trial before they’re condemned—but the irony of that is hard to miss.

Then there’s Trump. And I’ll remind everyone, before I go on, that Trump isn’t just a liar—he’s a bad liar, because he’s used to getting away with stuff and excuses are just part of that process. The fact that the media feel obligated to repeat his every lie—and the official lies of all his media avatars (I’m looking at you, Huckabee)—makes us start to suppose it’s normal for a president to lie like a rug, daily.

Trump brings this great ‘retro’ thing to his sexual-equality platform—sounds just like the fifties. “Remember, he said he was innocent…” was Trump’s comment about his wife-beating (2Xs!) StoCOS. That’s one way to say he denied the charges against him—I guess. But does it really stack up to two-wives’ testimony, a court-ordered restraint, and an evidence-photo of wife-one’s black eye? Then, just for laughs, a second aide resigns over the same kind of inhuman crap—and Trump doubles-down—what a pig! But we knew that, so no surprise, I guess?

The news has commented repeatedly that Trump avoided even mentioning the victims of the alleged abuses—and his Administration is too thick-skinned to even bother plugging that chink in their image. Plus, they probably know they couldn’t get him to do it. Trump’s response to his own twenty accusers makes it pretty plain that he has more in common with Sandusky and Nassar than with any decent person.

But my message today is once again aimed at the Republicans. Trump is psychotic—he has no shame. But you folks, presumably, have a sense of shared reality with the rest of the humans here on Earth. And you know that it is going to be a lot harder for you to show your faces, when this house of cards finally collapses.

People have been throwing around the word ‘treason’ quite a bit, recently—I, myself, see many of Trump’s words and deeds in that light. Here’s what I think Republicans should be concerned about—Trump, currently, is serving Putin’s interests more than the Republican Party’s. So, if you folks get away with keeping him in office a full four years—how do you suppose Putin is going to use those years? And what will a Congress-person be worth when he’s done? Can you say ‘Pyrrhic Victory’?

Besides, the truth always comes out in the end. The real question is: Will the rest of us have any kindness left to offer, when your wrongdoings come to light?

“Doi, yeah! Odderwize Idda done the fair and honest thing, like I ALWAYS does.”