Automattic To Buy Tumbler from Verizon

It’s just fun.
Or money.
It’s the same thing, isn’t it?
Can you hear me now?

–//–

Verizon to Sell Tumblr to WordPress.com Owner

Carrier sheds blogging site for nominal amount as part of media unit revamp

Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been overshadowed by rival social-media sites.

By Sarah Krouse
Aug. 12, 2019 4:00 pm ET

Verizon Communications Inc. (stock symbol VZ) has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion.

Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook, Reddit and other services.

Verizon became Tumblr’s owner through the carrier’s 2017 acquisition of Yahoo (symbol AABA) as part of a bid to build a digital media and advertising business. The wireless carrier began seeking a buyer for Tumblr earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

It discussed a potential transaction with a handful of parties, people familiar with the matter said. The sale price isn’t material to Verizon, one of the people said.

Verizon is in the process of revamping its media group, which struggled to meet revenue targets in recent years. The business, home to legacy Yahoo and AOL web properties such as HuffPost, TechCrunch, feminist media brand Makers and celebrity-interview site Build, is increasingly focused on subscription and original content.

The Tumblr acquisition is the largest ever in terms of price and head count for Automattic, the company’s Chief Executive Matt Mullenweg said in an interview. The San Francisco company has a stable of brands focused on

Democratic Tea Leaves II

In a recent entry dated August 8, 2019, entitled Reading Democratic Tea Leaves I noted one, or two very fine, somewhat minor points overlooked by most pundits.

One, that like most other Democratic nominee candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden’s support has largely stagnated – even though it has been higher than most other candidates.

Vice President Joe Biden, Official Portrait 2013

And second, only two other candidates have had any SIGNIFICANT INCREASE in their level of support (as defined by polling) since the inception of their candidacy: South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Since the announcement of his candidacy as the Democratic nominee for President, former Vice President Joe Biden’s support has gone from 29.0% to 30.8%. That’s an increase of only 6.21%.

October 26, 2016; South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg

In sharp contrast, “Mayor Pete” has gone from 1.0% and is now (August 10) at 6.5%, and has polled as high as 8.4% from April 20 through May 2. That’s an increase of 550% to date. If fluctuations are considered (low to high), that’s 740%.

Senator Warren, however, has gone from 5.3% and is now at 18.3% – her highest ever polling. That’s an increase, and fluctuation of 245.28%.

Senator Sanders started at

Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead

NOTE TO READERS: Effectively, because no other parties were named in the indictment against Jeffrey Epstein, the case against him is now just as dead as he is. As well, it’s highly doubtful that any information obtained in the Grand Jury process will be released to the public. However, Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, “Today’s events are disturbing, and we are deeply aware of their potential to present yet another hurdle to giving Epstein’s many victims their day in Court. To those brave young women who have already come forward and to the many others who have yet to do so, let me reiterate that we remain committed to standing for you, and our investigation of the conduct charged in the Indictment – which included a conspiracy count – remains ongoing.” Such a statement strongly suggests that the government’s investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking case will continue. There is at least one other potential co-conspirator, and that is Epstein’s long-time confidant-cum-occasional-sexual partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. –Editor
––//––
According to a Press Release by the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons – including numerous independent reports from validated, and verified sources – convicted pedophile, and accused sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein has apparently

Second Democratic Debate, Night 2 Analysis

2nd Democratic Debate, Night 2 – Detroit, MI

Analysis

As was earlier mentioned on The Week website, CNN wasted viewers’ time by taking very nearly 30 minutes before the first question was asked, which was in stark contrast to NBC News’ first question within 60 seconds. And then, after an elaborate opening, they went directly to a commercial break, which was followed by candidates’ opening remarks.

CNN pitted the candidates against each other by baiting. The lead question was directed at Senator Harris which attacked Biden and her M4A (Medicare for All) plan.

The candidates’ positions, for the greatest part, were quite similar, and CNN’s efforts were to attack the presumptive leader, which in that night was Biden.

There were 117 so-called “questions” (opportunities for verbal exchange) lobbed by CNN at the 10 candidates, the first 10 of those 117 are:

1.) Senator Harris, this week you released a new health care plan which would preserve private insurance and take 10 years to phase in. Vice President Biden’s campaign calls your plan, quote, “a have-it-every-which-way approach” and says it’s just part of a confusing pattern of equivocating about your health care stance. What do you say to that?

2.) Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Harris. Vice President Biden, your response.

3.) Your response, Senator Harris?

4.) Senator Harris, thank you. Vice President Biden, your response?

5.) Thank you, Senator Harris. Mayor de Blasio, let’s bring you in here. What’s your response?

6.) Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Vice President Biden, you just heard Mayor de Blasio. He said in the past that Democrats who wanted to keep the private insurance industry are defending a health care system that is not working. What’s your response?

7.) Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Senator Gillibrand, you support Medicare for All. How do you feel about Senator Harris continuing to call her health proposal Medicare for All, when it includes a far more significant role for private insurance than the bill you co-sponsored?

8.) Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. Senator Harris, your response?

9.) Thank you, Senator Harris. Vice President Biden, your response?

10.) Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you. Senator Booker, let me bring you in here. You say you support Medicare for All. You also say you are not going to pull private health insurance from more than 150 million Americans in exchange for a government plan, but that’s what Medicare for All would do. How do you square that?

Within those opening questions/exchanges, former Vice President Biden was mentioned by CNN 12 times, either by surname, by title, or combination of the two. The runner-up was

The GOP Hopes That You Keep Sleeping

America has become like the proverbial frog in a pot of water, which has slowly, but steadily, increased in temperature to the point that it is boiled alive without realizing it.

As the story goes, if the frog were dumped into boiling water, it would immediately jump out.

But, since the water’s temperature was initially comfortable, even pleasant, and only slowly increased, the frog gradually became acclimated to it, and therefore was, in effect, desensitized to the inevitable, impending danger, and died slowly.

For the past nearly 50 years or so, and more specifically, within the last 38, America has swooned under the siren song led by the GOP, which in part started off with the not-so-oblique condemnation that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” (As Brian Gurney, a private citizen from California, noted: “You can’t govern if you don’t believe in government.” But set up a straw man, and beat it to a pulp – demonize the Constitutional effigy.) And to sweeten the deal, and help matters along, a little bit of “They’re individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life,” was thrown in for good measure (“a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” you know).

In order to facilitate that destruction, first was an appetizer of dessert – across-the-board personal income tax rates were cut 23%, which made the majority of working-class Americans and families very happy.

But then, calling them “job creators,” (veritable sacred cows which should be left alone to wander about in traffic and poop anywhere they desire) another round of personal income tax cuts came around, this time for the elites, and personal income tax rates upon the very wealthiest Americans was dramatically slashed to less than half the former rate – from 70% to 28%.

And then, there came cries and demands for liberty, and freedom from the tyranny of genuine governmental slavery in the form of, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And truly, who could disagree? But that was quickly transformed into efforts to squelch personal liberty as healthcare decision-making in the most intimate of, and deeply personal matters involving reproduction, by providing opportunity for nosy neighbors (government) to tell others how they ought to run their lives according to the dictates of others’ religious convictions, all under the auspices of government.

Dissatisfied with that aspect of control, they sought to again meddle into the private lives of others – despite the fact that their private liberties were not encroached upon – and the sanction of committed legal relationships in the civil sector were forbidden to select individuals… just like it once was with ethnic minorities. And when in indignation they invited the SCOTUS to step in and rule (hopefully to their advantage, though contrary to their own religious writings), which ruled against their religiously-motivated (no religious test), publicly-sanctioned governmental discrimination (equal protection under law), they loudly cried ‘FOUL!’

And then, when more of their hand-picked, fair-haired children ruled against them, that rights were not absolute (D.C. v Heller), that not just anyone had a right to own, possess, or brandish any firearm, anywhere, at any time, they couldn’t stand it any more, and falsely accused the SCOTUS of partiality and of siding with their opponents whom they continuously maligned, despite the fact that they were ruled against by one of their own most staunch hard-liners.

Feeling emboldened, their most powerful, yet little-known instigator went public and said in part that,

Democrats Detroit Debate, Night 1

UPDATE: Today, around 10AM CST, a fatal shooting occurred at a Wal-Mart store in Southaven,MS – the 3rd largest city in the state, population 49,000, and a rural suburb of Memphis – in which two people died, and one law enforcement officer was wounded.
–//–
Tonight, Tuesday, July 20, 2019, will be the first night of the 2nd Democratic Debate, which will be held in Detroit, MI.

Political Prediction: Joe Biden will go down in flames.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden cops a feel of then-Democratic Presidential nominee, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the Scranton, PA airport tarmac on her campaign trail in August 2016.

Why?

Despite the fact of his 10-15 point lead in polls over his next closest competitors, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President creepy “Uncle Joe” Biden remains vulnerable on many political fronts. In his 36-year Senate history, he has voted on thousands of bills, some of which have been very costly to Americans, fiscally, and sociologically.

One such bill was first mentioned by California Senator Kamala Harris, which was Biden’s early opposition to busing as a tool to integrate and desegregate schools. After her announcement of that almost-forgotten historical item at the first Democratic candidates debate in Miami, Biden’s support – as polled – fell at least 15 points.

Senator Joe Biden as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he helped write the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, which created the “Gun Show Loophole.”

Recently, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has criticized Biden somewhat obliquely (though not by name) when he Tweeted

Joe’s Gotta’ Go… Home – to Bake Cookies in Scranton

Bye bye, Biden!

Former Vice President Joe Biden, a 36-year career politician as United States Senator from Delaware, has historically been instrumental in establishing many laws which now trouble our nation, which have also proven costly economically, injudicious, racially divisive, and degrading to the moral social fabric of our nation – the family.

Senator Joe Biden (DE) as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he helped write the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, which created the “Gun Show Loophole.”

Unbeknown (or, more accurately, forgotten) to many, he also helped create the so-called “Gun Show Loophole” – a specially-carved-out niche in Federal firearms legislation (the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act, FOPA) that allowed firearm and ammunition sales via the Internet, and forbade background investigations for firearm purchases at gun shows, which in turn not only popularized the modern gun show, but significantly contributed to mass shootings.

Perhaps he should be called “Gun Show Joe.”

–//–

Cory Booker, United States Senator from New Jersey

Senators Kamala Harris (CA) and Cory Booker (NJ) have signaled the beginning of the end for the Biden campaign by first acknowledging Biden’s historical opposition to busing, and now with Booker’s July 23rd Tweet acknowledging Biden’s support for mass incarceration, which has disproportionately harmed Blacks and Hispanics, both racial/ethnic minority communities, and exacted enormous taxpayer borne tolls – “It’s not enough to tell us what you’re going to do for our communities, show us what you’ve done for the last 40 years. You created this system. We’ll dismantle it.”

Senator Kamala Harris fired the first proverbial shot across the bow of the SS Biden by mentioning that Biden, as Senator from Delaware, opposed school integration by busing.

Now, Senator Booker has proverbially lobbed a grenade – if not fired a mortar round – into the Biden camp.

Biden’s aspirations will be proverbially shot down in this Tuesday and Wednesday night’s debate, July 30, and 31 in Detroit, and the aircraft of his once-flying-high candidacy to be the Democratic party’s 2020 Presidential nominee – and by extension, as President – will go down in flames. One only wonders at what point he’ll parachute from the burning craft, in order to save his own life – which in allegorical and metaphorical context, is his reputation.

Kamala Harris, United States Senator from California

Simply put, Joe’s gotta’ go.

Go home to bake cookies in Scranton, where he belongs — NOT in the White House.

His very own track record will be his political demise.

—//—

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/29/745715773/biden-promises-no-more-mr-nice-guy-in-second-democratic-debate

Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris Ready For Showdown On Race In Debate

“He described Biden as an “architect of mass incarceration,” when speaking with reporters last week at the annual NAACP convention in Detroit.

“Booker was referring to Biden’s role as a champion of the controversial 1994 crime bill, which critics and some experts say led to a disproportionate number of African American men being imprisoned.

“”I’m disappointed that it’s taken Joe Biden years until he was actually running for president to actually say that he made a mistake, that there were things in that bill that were extraordinarily bad. For him not to have a more comprehensive, bold plan to deal with this is unacceptable to me, especially because he is partially responsible for the crisis that we have now.“”

MSM on Mueller “As Seen on TV”

Mainstream media (MSM) has become more like a “reality” teevee show, than a trusted and reliable source of news. Ernie Pyle, Walter Cronkite, and Tim Russert, along with the spirit of “just the facts,” are dead.

For example, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller testified that, among other things, shortly after being elected, the President lied to the Special Prosecutor, and attempted to exert “undue influence” on Federal law enforcement, in order to protect himself and his allies.

Robert S. Mueller, III (b.1944), FBI Director 2001 – 2013

At any any other time, in any other administration, a decorated Marine officer, Special Prosecutor, and former FBI Director who testified that the President of the United States was a as-yet-unprosecuted Federal felon who encouraged and benefited from an attack upon American democracy in selfish pursuit of political gain would bring the nation to a screeching halt.

Ernie Pyle (1900-1945) in 1945

Rather than reporting the findings of facts, the MSM opined that

A Rose By Any Other Name

Read this and tell me what you think.

—//—

Oversight of the Report on the Investigation into County Interference in the 1996 Mayoral Election: Former Dedicated Prosecutor Richard S. Mabry, Jr.

Councilman Tommy Lawry (Westside):
Thank you Superintendent Mabry for your long history of service to our country, including your service as a Marine, where you earned the Bronze Star with a ‘V’ device. I’d like to now turn to the elements of Obstruction of Justice as applied to the mayor’s attempts to curtail your investigation. The first element of Obstruction of Justice requires and obstructive act. Correct?

Mr. Mabry: Correct.

Lawry: I’d like to direct you to page 97 of Volume 2 of your report, and you wrote there on page 97, quote “Sitter was being instructed to tell the Dedicated Prosecutor to end the existing investigation into the mayor and his campaign,” unquote. That’s in the report – correct?

Mabry: Correct

Lawry: That would be evidence of an obstructive act because it would naturally obstruct an investigation. Correct?

Mabry: Ah… correct.

Lawry: Let’s now turn to the second element of the crime of Obstruction of Justice which requires a nexus to the official proceeding. Again, I’m going to direct you to page 97 – the same page in Volume 2 – and you wrote, quote, “by the time the mayor’s initial one-on-one meeting with LaChance on June 19, 1987, the existence of a grand jury investigation by the Dedicated Prosecutor was public knowledge.” That’s in the report – correct?

Mabry: Correct.

Lawry: That would constitute evidence of a nexus to an official proceeding, because the grand jury investigation is an official proceeding… correct?

Mabry: Yes.

Lawry: I can now turn to the final element of the crime of obstruction of justice. On that same page – page 97 – do you see where there’s an intent section on that page? (unintelligible)

Mabry: Correct.

Lawry: Would you be willing to

Amy Winehouse Remembered

Yesterday marked the 8th anniversary of the loss of phenomenal 27-year-old Grammy Award-winning British musician-songstress Amy Winehouse.

Her 6 awards included an ironic-now-iconic autobiographical performance of “Rehab” at the 50th annual Grammy Awards February 20, 2008 in Los Angeles, where she won an unprecedented 5 awards for her 2006 album Back to Black – making her the first British female artist to have ever won as many – including Album of The Year for “Back to Black,” Record of the Year and Song of The Year for “Rehab,” Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for “Rehab, and Best Pop Vocal Album for “Back to Black.”

At the time of the Grammy awards, she was in London performing at the 2008 BRIT Awards via satellite from Earls Court.

Her accomplishments were unprecedented, because she also tied the previous record for the most Grammy awards by a female artist in a single night.

The Grammys honor musical achievement in the year prior, and were for releases between October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2007.

On July 23, 2011, she was found unresponsive in her bedroom at her house in the borough of Camden, in northwest London.

Because her death was unattended, a coroner’s inquest began, which autopsy revealed

Remembering Ross Perot

Ross Perot (1930-2019)

Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who made his fortune in Information Technology/Computer Data Systems, twice ran for POTUS as an independent candidate, and prophetically warned about the “giant sucking sound” of American jobs moving to Mexico if NAFTA was ratified, has died, aged 89.

Perot was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, which is also why, in part, he chose retired former Vice Admiral James Stockdale – an Annapolis graduate, living recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and

Jeffrey Epstein Arrested Again. Will He Be Put Away Forever? Will Donald Trump Follow?

Alexander Acosta’s resignation letter

UPDATE: Sunday, 14 July 2019 – Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, the former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who was intimately and directly involved in the Federal government’s non-prosecution agreement with Jeffrey Epstein, whom Acosta granted immunity from prosecution in lieu of his guilty plea to felony charges by the State of Florida of solicitation of prostitution from an underage girl, has announced his resignation 12 July 2019, to be effective one week later, 19 July 2019.

–//–

Yesterday (Saturday, 07 July 2019), after his private Boeing 727 landed in New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport from Paris, multi-millionaire hedge fund manager and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force on at least one charge related to sex trafficking. He will be held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center – a nearby high-security Federal jail which has held notorious criminals like international narcotrafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman – until the Federal indictment against him will be unsealed Monday in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan U.S. Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in Manhattan.

The news release of th indictment against him states in part that “JEFFREY EPSTEIN, 66, is charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.”

The beginnings of Epstein’s downfall occurred in 2005 when a 14-year-old girl told Palm Beach police that an older man named “Jeff” had molested her at his residence, which was an unmistakably unique two-story pink mansion on a dead-end street. From that point, police investigations found a pattern of behavior involving nearly 30 young girls, many whom told him they were under age at the time of the offenses.

The Florida State Attorney’s Office in Palm Beach claimed the victims’ testimony wasn’t credible because they were young girls, and only filed one felony count of soliciting underage prostitution against Epstein. In 2006, Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter accused prosecutors of giving special treatment to Epstein and referred the case to the FBI. Thereafter, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami drafted a 53-page indictment against Epstein, and an 82-page prosecution memorandum.

Under a controversial plea deal in 2007 with Alex Acosta, then U.S. Attorney in Miami, Epstein plead guilty in 2008 to charges by the State of Florida of

Economic Fundamental

California United States Senator Kamala Harris

There is something FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG in a nation when its largest supermarket chain by revenue – which is also the second-largest general retailer and the eighteenth largest company in the nation – finds it necessary, and plans to

Joe Biden: “My time’s up.”

“My time’s up. I’m sorry.“

– former VP Joe Biden, in his first primary “debate” appearance among the 20+ Democratic nominee wanna’ be’s, on the second night of the two-night event in Miami, FL, Thursday, 27 June 2019

Truer words were ne’er spoken.
He’s right.
Your time is up, Joe.
Gotta’ move on.

Joe Biden is a dinosaur, a relic from a different age, but it has nothing to do with his age.

He claims to be a Democrat, but his track record speaks for itself.

When then-Vice President Biden made a ceremonial appearance on the Senate floor Monday, December 5, 2016, in response to the 21st Century Cures Act, which had a major portion of the law renamed after his late son Beau, who earlier died from brain cancer – The Beau Biden Memorial Moonshot – which allocated $1.8 Billion for cancer research, he was asked by a reporter what his plans were after leaving office, and if he had other political ambitions, Mr. Biden flippantly dead-panned saying, “Yeah, I am. I’m going to run in 2020.”

The reporter responded asking, “For what?”

Mr. Biden replied, “For president. What the hell, man! Anyway…”

When he was later asked to clarify his remark, Vice President Biden attempted to retract his remark by saying “I’m not committing not to run. I’m not committing to anything. I learned a long time ago fate has a strange way of intervening.”

The next day later, in an appearance Tuesday, December 6, 2016, on “The Late Show” with host Stephen Colbert, Mr. Biden said in part, that “I’m a great respecter of fate. I don’t plan on running again. But to say you know what’s going to happen in four years, I just think is

2019 Democratic Debate: Night 1

The clear leaders for the first night were Massachusetts United States Senator Elizabeth Warren, and New Jersey United States Senator Cory Booker.

Here’s some analysis.

Historically, Senators have been better poised to win the White House than Representatives, with 16 having become POTUS, while 18 Governors have become POTUS.

The United States Senate website writes this about Senators:
“To date, 16 senators have also served as president of the United States. Three Senators, Warren G. Harding, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama moved directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House.”

That’s 16/45, or 35.5%, of all POTUSes who were ever a Senator. And 3/16, or 18.75%, were elected as POTUS directly from the Senate.

The House of Representatives website states this about Representatives who later became POTUS:
“Since 1789, 19 Members of the House have served as President of the United States. Four Members — John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Gerald Ford — were never elected to the Presidency, having succeeded a President who died or resigned. Only Gerald Ford was never successfully elected as either President or Vice President, though he served in both positions.”

For the House, that’s 19/45, or 42.2% who later became POTUS. However, only 1 – James Garfield – ever went directly from the House to the White House, and that’s 1/45, or 2.2%.

Since 1901, the

Biden: When I started in the Senate, I got along with racist White Supremacists.

Vice President Joe Biden, Official Portrait 2013

Former Vice President Joe Biden, a Democratic candidate – among the 20-plus wanna’ be’s – campaigning to be the party’s 2020 Presidential nominee, has recently taken flack for his waffling, wavering, moving-target positions on women, abortion, and civil rights.

Once, he supported the Hyde Amendment.

Now, he opposes it.

Once, he got along with racist bigots.

Now… he apparently still does.

Biden’s wishy-washy, ever-changing positions are nothing new.

In an appearance Tuesday, December 6, 2016, on “The Late Show” with host Stephen Colbert, Mr. Biden said in part, that “I’m a great respecter of fate. I don’t plan on running again. But to say you know what’s going to happen in four years, I just think is – is not rational. I can’t see the circumstance in which I’d run, but what I’ve learned a long, long, long time ago, Stephen, is to never say never. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Hell, Donald Trump is going to be 74. I’ll be 77 and in better shape. Who knows?”

Now, he’s announced his candidacy to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President.

And in 1968, then a newly-minted lawyer, having earned the Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University College of Law, for six months, Mr. Biden clerked for a Wilmington, Delaware law firm led by William Pickett, who was a prominent local Republican, and said that he “thought of myself as a Republican.”

That same year, Mr. Biden also staunchly opposed forced school busing to combat segregation, and called it “a phony issue which allows the White liberals to sit in suburbia, confident that they are not going to have to live next to Blacks.”

Most recently, Mr. Biden has come under fire for his remarks made at

POTUS Obama: Sen. Warren is “absolutely wrong” on Trans-Pacific Partnership. But is she?

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written 11 May 2015, though unpublished. The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), is/was a “free-trade” pact among the nations of Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, and United States signed on 4 February 2016, though it was NOT ratified, and thus, did NOT take effect. All 12 members nations signed the TPP 4 February 2016.

However, because it was NOT ratified by all signatories before 4 February 2018, it will become effective ONLY after ratification when at least 6 nations with a combined GDP of more than 85% of the GDP of all signatories have signed.

Further, because the United States withdrew from the TPP, it also significantly and adversely affected it. The TPP agreement will become active only after all signatories have ratified it within two years of signing.

—//—

President Obama recently criticized Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (D) for her clarion call warning of the potential damage the Trans-Pacific Partnership could do to United States’ economy.

Sen. Warren has said that “This is hardly a hypothetical possibility: We are already deep into negotiations with the European Union on a trade agreement and big banks on both sides of the Atlantic are gearing up to use that agreement to water down financial regulations.”

The President countered saying, “This is pure speculation. She and I both taught law school, and you know, one of the things you do as a law professor is you spin out hypotheticals. And this is all hypothetical, speculative.”

President Obama further dismissed her criticisms out of hand saying, “she’s absolutely wrong,” about the concerns she and others have raised, and appeared to throw down the gauntlet for open, frank discussion of the still-secret trade pact which would include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

The President gives the USTR broad power to keep secret information about the trade policies it advances and negotiates.

United States Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) said, “More than two months after receiving the proper security credentials, my staff is still barred from viewing the details of the proposals that USTR is advancing.”

A Senate bill – S. 3225 – which would require the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to disclose all its TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) documents to every member of Congress was introduced May 23, 2012 by Sen. Wyden, who is Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness. In that capacity, his office is responsible for conducting oversight over the USTR and trade negotiations.

Speaking from the Senate floor, Sen. Wyden said the purpose of the bill was “to ensure that the laws and policies that govern the American people take into account the interests of all the American people, not just a privileged few. Congress passed legislation in 2002 to form the Congressional Oversight Group, or COG, to foster more USTR consultation with Congress. I was a senator in 2002. I voted for that law and I can tell you the intention of that law was to ensure that USTR consulted with more Members of Congress, not less.”

Golf Balls & Reality Teevee

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5tf7Ju9NBdk

Today, I saw a demonstration video of a toilet made by American Standard (⬆︎linked⬆︎above⬆︎). The company boasts that their Champion 4 model can flush 56 chicken nuggets effortlessly. They also advertise that it can flush 24 golf balls at once.

That’s what caught my attention – the golf balls.

Advertising toilets is much like advertising sanitary napkins or tampons – feminine hygiene products made to absorb menstrual blood flow. On teevee, they’re ALWAYS depicted as absorbing a blue liquid, which is most likely water with bluing added. Never red. Never. Perhaps the advertisers mean to suggest that if women purchase their branded products, they’ll become blue bloods.

Toilets are similarly depicted – never showing life’s reality. It’s just too… real.

So-called “reality” teevee is more surreal than real, especially when a naked man and woman are thrust together in a half-cocked scheme to “find” their way “back to” whatever version of reality from which they originated. There was a time when a naked man and naked woman put together would be finding other, better, more pleasant things to do rather than traipse across the countryside in their birthday suits.

Yet that’s what passes for “entertainment” these days. Never wonder why I’ve not owned a teevee for at least 10yrs.

But, back to the golf balls.

The American Standard Champion 4 model toilet is depicted in advertising as flushing two dozen golf balls in one flush.

That’s impressive, of course, but the thought that occurred to me was

Make America Great Again: A How-To Guide

Jim Cooper, a Democrat, is the US Representative for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District.

Jim Cooper, who represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional Distict, and is a Democrat, is also a Rhodes Scholar (economics & politics, Oriel College), and Harvard JD grad, after earning the BA in economics from UNC Chapel Hill.

He’s a fiscal conservative, and has long said that, because our government uses a cash accounting system (which is ILLEGAL for businesses to use), our government’s debt is very likely much larger than is estimated.

For that reason, he’s also long advocated changing the accounting method the United States government uses.

TN CD5 is essentially Davidson County (metro Nashville), and includes the adjoining Cheatham & Dickson counties to the WEST.

See:
https://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/cong_dist/cd113/cd_based/ST47/CD113_TN05.pdf

Oh… and as you might surmise, cutting taxes is NOT how to stimulate the economy. It is by government spending. Which is also why cutting taxes is a very bad idea, since it kills the goose that laid that golden egg. (This Internet thing came about by government spending, which has created an entirely new economy, and billionaires… and, it began as a DARPA research project. Just like GPS.)

As I continue to maintain,

our government is NOT “too big,”
it is MUCH TOO SMALL to be
either efficient,
or effective.

Think about what it’d be like going to a restaurant with a 100-seating capacity, finding it filled with patrons, and only one waiter and one cook. No one would get any service, and they’d be a fool to think otherwise.

That’s what has happened, and is continuing to happen to our government.

With very nearly 329,000,000 people, we are the THIRD LARGEST (most populous) nation on Earth – China ( 1,419,124,987) and India (1,365,986,094) are 1st & 2nd, respectively.

The GOP’s “starve the monster” approach to governance, i.e., kill/reduce/eliminate the source of the “monster’s food,” e.g., taxes, and you’re well on your way to a privatization scheme the likes of which neither our nation, nor the world has ever seen. Hopefully, that won’t happen. But, that’s what you get when Grover Norquist has said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
– from an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, May 25, 2001.

Racism Rampant In The South

Rampant racism continues in our United States, especially and particularly in the South.

Or, so it seems.

One would’ve hoped for “a more perfect union,” especially by now.

But, that’s progress, and “progress” is a dirty word to many – especially to Southerners – whose loathsome contempt of, and resistance to change is as ignobly infamous as their Lost Cause (of the Confederacy) following defeat in our nation’s Civil War.

Curtis Flowers was tried for the SAME crime SIX times in Mississippi. If that doesn’t violate the intent of the “Double Jeopardy” clause of the Constitution, I don’t know what does. (Image from Mississippi Department of Corrections.)

Synopsis: A Mississippi Death Row inmate was prosecuted SIX times for the SAME crime by a prosecutor with a history of racial bias in jury selection.

The case was SO egregious, that the sole, long-silent Southerner, and only Black SCOTUS Justice, Clarence Thomas, who has for many years maintained literal silence on the bench, asked a question – the last question he asked was THREE YEARS AGO.

NPR wrote that arguments before the SCOTUS Justices in this case were “more passionate and fact-filled than usual.” (SCOTUS case transcript linked above, and here: SCOTUS case Curtis Giovanni Flowers v Mississippi 17-9572)

The case the Justices heard Wednesday, 20 March 2019, involved the conduct of Montgomery County District Attorney Doug Evans, in the tiny town of Winona, Mississippi, and his relentless pursuit of a conviction of Curtis Flowers.

With a population well under 5000, Winona is practically a village, and of the modestly-sized tiny town, NPR wrote that it’s a place “where everybody knows everybody.”

Curtis Giovanni Flowers is a black man who had NO prior arrests or convictions before he was arrested and accused of a quadruple murder in the town.

After Flowers’ arrest, he was

Cohen In Constant Contact With Federal Investigation Attorneys

“I am in constant contact with the Southern District of New York regarding ongoing investigations.”

– Michael Cohen, former attorney and “fixer” for Donald J. Trump, under oath to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, February 27, 2019

 

That one sentence early in Mr. Cohen’s testimony before the committee is substantial, regardless of whether anything else he said is true, or not. There is no legitimate reason for him to make such a claim, especially if it was a lie.

Consider also the “Liar’s Paradox,” referring to knowing how to discern when a liar is telling the truth. Frankly, however, everyone – WITHOUT EXCEPTION – has lied at one time, or another; therefore, using the faulty “logic” used by Republicans, everyone is a liar… including them. Yet, they except themselves simply by ignoring that fact. So therefore, their hypocrisy is exposed.

Such exercises are part and parcel of logic and reasoning, which is also a branch of mathematics, and forms a foundation upon which philosophy and even the legal profession exists – particularly and especially in criminal trials. In other words, deduction is based upon a formula which can be expressed on paper.

But there are also behavioral (physical) clues exhibited by the liar, which may (though not always) include “body language” such as fidgeting, facial movements and gestures, including eye movement such as covering the mouth and/or looking away, intonation and inflection in their voice and tone of speech, observation of breathing patterns, use or avoidance of certain words, exaggeration of details, response to questions, repetition of certain words, sentences, or phrases (a type of stalling to increase time for crafting a lie), including a “mid-sentence jump” (changing the train of thought in the middle of expressing an idea), deflection (a conversational control tactic which changes the focus of the topic by not directly answering the question), and more.

Michael Cohen takes oath before his testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Wednesday, 27 February 2019.

The Southern District of New York refers to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a Federal court which has been in existence in New York, NY, since 1789.

The Attorney’s Office writes this about their mission:

“The Office prosecutes cases involving violations of federal laws, and represents the interests of the United States government and its agencies in criminal and civil matters. The Office investigates and prosecutes a broad array of criminal conduct of every conceivable magnitude, even when the conduct arises in distant places.”

Reasonably and logically, no liar would lie about being “in constant contact with” a Federal Attorney’s Office, or a Federal Court, after an investigation has concluded.

The fact that Mr. Cohen made such a comment is telling, simply because

Flooding Rains Damage Alabama and Tennessee

America could build infrastructure to PREVENT tragedies like this from happening. And by “tragedy,” I mean to refer to the damage done in the wake of such climatological events – REGARDLESS of their causes, whether human-influenced, or not.

We once did build infrastructure, or rather, attempted to, after the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, when nearly 30,000 square miles of land along the lower portion of the Mississippi River was flooded to depths up to 30 feet, and stayed flooded to that extent for well over two months before receding. That natural disaster displaced well over 1.5 million people, and killed thousands directly and indirectly.

After that, Republican POTUS Calvin Coolidge refused to call a Special Session of the then-adjourned Congress, and rather than initiating governmental action, wanted to raise money to facilitate recovery efforts through bake sales, church raffles and private philanthropy, which he also thought should be dealt with at a local level, rather than Federal. It’s NO exaggeration to write that.

Obviously, that approach didn’t work. So Coolidge, who couldn’t be bothered to go and visit the people in the areas devastated, came under significant pressure for his lackadaisical do-nothing attitude, and assigned the task of “doing something” to then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who – though Stanford-educated as an infamously mediocre student who failed all the entrance exams but mathematics – had led food distribution efforts in post-WWI Europe.

Newspapers were not kind to Coolidge, and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (in Mississippi) wrote, “It has been necessary to school President Coolidge day by day a bit more towards the realization of the immensity of the catastrophe.”

The Paducah News-Democrat (in Kentucky) wrote that Coolidge had either “the coldest heart in America or the dullest imagination, and we are about ready to believe he has both.”

The New York Times however, saw things differently only because they were unaffected, and wrote, “Fortunately, there are still some things that can be done without the wisdom of Congress and the all-fathering federal government.”

But the Chicago Tribune thought little of the hare-brained scheme, and instead headlined a story with “Coolidge Backs Gigantic Flood Control Scheme,” while their Editorial Board wrote, “Only the resources and jurisdiction of the federal government can cope with the task of flood control.”

Coolidge’s contempt for government was well-known, and he disparagingly said, “If the federal government were to go out of existence, the common run of people would not detect the difference.”

Instead of governmental action, the Coolidge White House started

Hoda Muthana

Can ANYONE tell me (or anyone else), exactly WTH is “a legal basis to return to the country” of one’s citizenship/origin?

Asking for a friend, you see.

Hoda Muthana, seated in the foreground, participates in a broadcasting class at Hoover High School in Hoover, Alabama, on August 18, 2011. (Image by Beverly Taylor/The Birmingham News)

Seriously.

If you’re born in the United States, it’s territories or protectorates, then you’re AUTOMATICALLY an American citizen. That includes Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, all U.S. Military bases worldwide, and here’s the list of U.S. protectorates:

American Samoa
Guam
Palau – While an autonomous nation, the United States provides defense, funding, social services, and the American dollar is the currency of exchange.
Puerto Rico
US Virgin Islands
Midway Atoll, Bikini Atoll, Johnston Atoll, Baker, Howard, Wake – all uninhabited islands

No questions asked… except by GOP whack-jobs, like “birthers” and other conspiracy theorists, who hallucinated after drinking the Libertarian kook-ade and concocted some hare-brained scheme to assert Barack Obama was born somewhere else, other than Hawaii.

So, yeah… New Jersey must not be a state, anymore.

And Alabama… well, it’s a state of mind – and a very sad one, at that.

Thank gawd for Mississippi, eh?

So it turns out that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, aka “Pompous Ass #2,” recently (as in yesterday, 20February2019) wrote that

Bittersweet

Perhaps you know that I read, and do so widely.

Yesterday, I read something that I found utterly BRILLIANT!

This is but one thought from it.

“To avoid being mistaken for gay, these days many self-proclaimed straight people—men especially—settle for superficial associations with their comrades and reserve the sort of costly intimacy that once characterized such chaste same-sex relationships for their romantic partners alone. Their ostensibly normal sexual orientation cheats them out of an essential aspect of human flourishing: deep friendship.”

As I am now writing these words, another thought came to mind, and it was that I learned a new word recently.

The word is “alexithymia,” and refers to the inability to describe emotions.

The word it self is a fairly new one having emerged circa 1970’s, and examining its component parts, tells us something about its meaning. The prefix “a” means the negation or absence of something, “lexi” means speech, and by extension communication, and “thymia” refers to a noun form meaning a condition being related to the mind and will.

I learned that word after viewing a brief TEDx presentation given by a gent who was presenting the case against the social, colloquial phrase “be a man” – and most all ideas associated with it, which also flow from it – and which as he shared, has significantly contributed to the alienation and isolation of emotions from boys, and the social retardation of the full development of personality and character which otherwise might be more fully developed were they “in tune with” their emotions, and able to describe them.

He made a much better case for emotional support than I’m able to explain here in a few words, but suffice it to say, that the impetus of his idea was that boys’ emotional development is largely (or, at least has been historically, most notably in modernity) socially squelched, and they have not been encouraged to express their emotions, save perhaps, except in sports, which itself is a very narrow expression.

But it was the story and motion picture “Brian’s Song,” about

Achoo!

An orgasm is the moral equivalent of a sneeze. It’s part of the autonomic nervous system and thus, largely cannot be controlled.

A sneeze is much ado about nothing.

Or, at least it is now.

It was once thought to portend poor health, sickness and disease, which is why many will say “bless you,” or “gesundheit!” after one sneezes.

Again, because a sneeze is a function of the autonomic nervous system, there’s largely nothing we can do to prevent it from occurring.

The autonomic nervous system regulates such bodily functions as digestion, breathing rate, heart rate, urination, pupillary response (response of the pupils to light), and sexual arousal.

So many make much ado about sexuality, but most of today’s ideas about sexuality are

EJ Bradford’s Killer, A Hoover PD Cop, Cleared By Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall

Emantic Fitzgerald “EJ” Bradford Jr. was shot and killed by a Hoover Police Officer on Thanksgiving night 2018 inside the Riverchase Galleria mall.

The word “vomitorium” describes an exit in a coliseum, and stems from its Latin root word “vomus” which means “to spew forth.”

Spew is what this report does.

And exit is what AL AG Steve Marshall does in regard to this case and matter.

From page 23 of the 24 total pages:
“First, a reasonable person could have assumed that the only person with a gun who was running toward the victim of a shooting that occurred just three seconds earlier fired the shots.”

Right… assailants with guns run TO the scene, just like cops. (sarcasm)

WRONG!

The AG’s report contains an error of the First Order by presuming that ordinary citizens would behave like Law Enforcement Officers (LEO) and run TO the sound of gunfire.

Most folks run AWAY from gunfire.

“A reasonable person” would do similarly.

Which, I suppose, would mean that LEO’s are therefore NOT “reasonable.”

Again, that is contradictory to the AG’s report which presumes that reasonable people run TO the sound of gunfire.

That also makes everyone on the scene who fled, unreasonable.

And on page 8, the report states “The officers engage Bradford, who stands holding a gun and then, unlike others at the scene, runs toward the gunshots.” (emphasis added)

The AG’s claim not only contradicts his later assertion, it does NOT even make logical sense, because

Trump’s Failed 2019 SOTU Shows GOP Contempt

Orenthal James “OJ” Simpson mug shot following his arrest for double murder 17 June 1994.

With Voter Dissatisfaction of the President at an all-time high, Trump’s government-shutdown-delayed, failed 2019 SOTU demonstrates his utter contempt of the GOP, and disgust for the American people.

About halfway through his alleged SOTU speech last night (Tuesday, February 5, 2019), I was expecting the POTUS to say something like “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit,” which was the hackneyed pithy phrase that Defense Attorney Johnnie Cochran coined in his defense of Orenthal James “OJ” Simpson at the murder trial for Ron Goldman, and Nicole Brown Simpson, his estranged and former wife, and mother of their two children.

Later, of course, while found “Not Guilty” by a jury of his peers in that double murder trial, OJ Simpson was later found found liable for both deaths in a 1997 civil suit, and ordered by the court to pay $33.5 million in punitive damages to the Brown and Goldman families.

Next, he was evicted from his residence after defaulting upon the mortgage, and all his possessions – including his 1968 Heisman Trophy – were ordered to be publicly auctioned to pay court-ordered debts to the Goldman family.

Then, the house and land were sold, the purchaser razed the structures, and renumbered the address.

Thereafter, the Internal Revenue Service found he had evaded Personal Income Taxes, and owed over $700,000 dollars to the United States Treasury;
• The State of California California Franchise Tax Board found that he owed them $1.44 million in taxes and in response, placed a lien on his property;
• Was arrested February 2001 in Miami-Dade County, Florida and charged with simple battery and burglary of an occupied conveyance;
• After the FBI searched his residence, they found equipment that defrauded satellite television service providers, and he was sued in Federal Court;

First Official White House portrait, aka “the scowling portrait”

• Was arrested again in Miami-Dade County, Florida July 2002 for speeding through a manatee protection zone, and failing to comply with proper boating regulations;
• Was sued by satellite television network DirecTV, Inc. in March 2004 and accused in Federal Court of using illegal electronic devices to pirate their broadcast signals, and plead guilty;
• And in 2007 was found guilty of Kidnapping and Armed Robbery in Clark County, Nevada and imprisoned, with convictions upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court;
• And was granted parole 9 years later.

He also published a ghost written book in 2007 entitled “If I Did It,” which was not received well to critical review, and was thought by many to be a confession of sorts, and all royalties from the sales of that book were ordered by a court to be awarded to the Goldman family.

So yeah… perhaps it’s time to “OJ” the Liar-in-Chief POTUS Trump.

My opinion of the POS45’s 2019 SOTU was about the same as that of Republican Alabama senior Senator Richard Shelby, who

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam

The yearbook photo ruckus with the Virginia Governor is, in my estimation, totally blown out of proportion, and this Op-Ed succinctly expresses what’s being overlooked, which is the PRESENT -and- the TRACK RECORD.

Wallace and Dr. James Hood admire Hood’s University of Alabama, Ph.D in Higher Education Administration diploma at Wallace’s Montgomery, Ala., home May 19, 1997. Wallace denied Hood admission to the University of Alabama in 1963.

Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, right, is shown at the Governor’s Mansion in Montgomery with a meeting between presidential hopeful Rev. Jesse Jackson in this July 21, 1987 photo. In the 1980s he renounced his segregationist views, and he won his last term as governor (1983-87) with support from black voters.

There’s a significantly vast difference between the photo under question, and the matter of Iowa Representative Steve King, whose words and actions are not merely oblique, but blatantly white supremacist / racist.

I think also about late former Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, who remains the only four-term Governor that State has ever had.

An August 26, 1994 photo of Wallace in an emotional moment as he shares a hug with friend Connie Harper at a celebration of his 75th birthday.

Several years following the 1972 assassination attempt upon him in Maryland, he campaigned for, and won re-election to an unprecedented fourth and final term in 1982 while wheelchair bound… and with the broad support of the African American voting community in the state, without whose support

Buffoon In Chief Threatens National Security

Trump Faults Spy Bosses As Break Widens Between What They Advise And What He Does https://www.npr.org/689938744

Can this buffoon be taken seriously anymore?

Frankly, he’s a genuinely serious threat to National Security.
Think of him as a domestic enemy. Seriously.

FBI Director Christopher Wray (left to right), CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, prepare to testify before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, 1/29/2019.

On Wednesday, 30 January 2019, POS45 rejected the sworn testimony of our nation’s top intelligence leaders that Iran is still complying with the nuclear agreement from which POS45 withdrew our United States. In other words, he’s practicing hypocrisy.

His lies, bull-in-a-china-shop and my-way-or-the-highway authoritarian, heavy-handed approach to governing has not worked, and will not ever work. America doesn’t want a dictator, anymore than we want a king. Our government is comprised of people willing to get in, roll their sleeves up, and do the work TOGETHER that needs to be done, and has been done, and continues to be done to make America great and even greater.

To flippantly say

Poll: Trump Sucks Hind Tit

www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/PPP_Release_National_12219.pdf

Vanderbilt University Medical Center Corruption

VANDERBILT CORRUPTION

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is a corrupt organization.

There’s no other way to put it.

Medicare fraud was perpetrated by physicians… not just once, nor in one area.

Then, an incompetent RN killed a patient.

And the entire organization – from the top down – deliberately covered up the event, and lied about how the patient died.

Following a patient death and other frauds which were covered up by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the once-respected, formerly venerable organization is now on the ropes.

Then, they fired an ethnic minority surgeon whose opinions they didn’t like.

The next part of their history will likely include a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) lawsuit.

Now, the VUMC is hurting for Nurses. Seriously hurting.

In one day, recently, at least 12 RNs left just one unit.

That single action alone jeopardizes Patient Safety at the hospital.

But who could blame the Nurses? Who would want to work in such a miserable, fraud-ridden environment?

Consequently, VUMC Human Resources is using unprecedented methods to attract new Nurses.

But the thing is, they don’t treat their people well, much less their patients, so why would anyone want to work there… or be a patient there?

Would you want to go to a hospital that had a shortage of Nurses?

Who hired that Nurse?

In November 2018, it was discovered that an incompetent and inexperienced

Roger Stone Indictment – Read it here.

Roger Stone Federal Criminal Indictment raises more questions than it answers.

It has now become clear that GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone, may have worked with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and Guccifer 2.0, an ostensible Russian hacking entity or operation which likely operated directly under the auspices of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian cyber counter-intelligence unit, aka “troll farm,” to influence the outcome of the 2016 General Election for GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Roger Stone is the same one who Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign fired after discovery of a personal ad he and his wife had placed in “Local Swinger Fever” a swingers magazine & website. The ad read: “Hot,

Say It: Madam President Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris, a seasoned and respected prosecutor first as San Francisco District Attorney, and then as state Attorney General, is now United States Senator from California, and campaigning for the Office of the President of the United States.

Already, the GOP Hate & Slander machine is cranking up.

National Review, once a respected conservative journal, has now become a tawdry yellow rag.

And sadly, Yahoo! News doesn’t prominently display that the hit-piece journo-job is an Op-Ed.

Furthermore, the author doesn’t mention that the first link is to yet another Op-Ed, that one in the “failing” New York Times.

And the “news” item to which they refer in the San Francisco Gate is well over 10 years old.

But moreover, if the level of “offense” to which they ostensibly refer was so severe, Prosecutor Harris would’ve faced professional censure, or worse.

And, she didn’t.

Furthermore, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo who was overseeing the matter had authority to toss out over 40 cases allegedly affected, and to rule against any alleged professional misbehavior by Prosecutor Harris, and…

Teen Grey Matter and Cannabis Use

In a recently published article entitled “Grey Matter Volume Differences Associated with Extremely Low Levels of Cannabis Use in Adolescence,” in the Journal of Neuroscience, 14 January 2019 edition, pp3375-17, researchers wrote in part that “We identified extensive regions in the bilateral medial temporal lobes as well as the bilateral posterior cingulate, lingual gyri, and cerebellum that showed greater GMV in the cannabis users.”

News items related to that newly published research are focusing upon that singular line as if it’s something negative. Since when did INCREASED grey matter become something dangerous, or cause for concern? Colloquially, the term “grey matter” is used to describe the brain, and by extension, brain power. So let’s examine this matter (no pun intended) in more detail.

But before proceeding further, it bears mentioning that adolescents should NOT be consuming cannabis, neither alcohol, nor tobacco. And try as much as we want, we will not ever stop underage consumption of any adults-only substance. The BEST we can do is to educate them, and others, of potential risks involved in its use – especially and particularly underage use – and deny them opportunities to consume alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis. THAT is a strategy which has PROVEN to work, because the trite “Just say ‘no'” has never worked, nor will it ever.

Dr David Robert Grimes is a physicist, cancer researcher and science writer, who was the joint recipient of the 2014 Nature / Sense About Science Maddox Prize and wrote in a brief anti-marijuana article dated 15th May 2017 entitled “The rise of the cannabis cult: don’t believe the hype about medical marijuana” that

How the Sackler family, private owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, became America’s BIGGEST drug pushers.

NPR, along with a few other news reporting agencies, has today published a story detailing how the Sackler family – with an estimated net worth of $13 Billion and listed by Forbes as the 19th wealthiest family in the United States – whose privately-held Purdue Pharma falsified, neglected, and purposely withheld information, and aggressively peddled their habit-forming narcotic medication branded as “OxyContin” to physicians, hospitals, and medical colleges as an acceptable, even benign medication for pain relief, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Purdue Pharma President Richard Sackler, and wife Beverly are the biggest narco-traffickers in the United States.

In a 274 page filing, the Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, carefully detailed how the Sackler family carefully and deliberately manipulated, and crafted opportunities with Massachusetts’ legislators, regulators, and others, to sell increasing volumes of the narcotic medicine.

The documents state that in a 2-15-2011 email, after one week of prescriptions doubled the company’s profit forecasts, Richard Sackler wrote to the sales staff that “I had hoped for better results.”

Massachussetts Attorney General’s Office pre-hearing memo & exhibits

https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2019/01/Mass_AGO_Pre-Hearing_Memo_and_Exhibits.pdf

But here’s where an otherwise LEGAL pharmaceutical firm became complicit with international narco-traffickers and street-level drug pushers, rapidly escalated America’s Opioid Crisis, and in the process became equals with terrorists like al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The Massachusetts Attorney General Pre-Hearing memorandum cited a

Whose Idea Was The Wall?

Where’d the idea for “The Wall” come from?

Whose idea was it?

Left to right: Iowa Republican Representative Steve King; Steve Elliott, President of Grassfire.org; Representative Ed Royce, R-California; and Ron De Jong, communications director of Grassfire.org, in 2007, introducing a television ad that asked when a fence would be built along the border.

Aside from Pink Floyd, Steve King, Iowa’s Racist 4th District Republican Representative said in a March 2017 interview with Yahoo! News that, “I built that model more than 10 years ago because people were saying, ‘We can’t build it. It’s too hard.’ And so I just put the model together. I just put it together piece by piece to show them how easy it is to build a wall.”

“I’m not interested in being the construction company that does this, but my little old company has the capability to build a mile of it a day. And so, what I envision is, I want to ask President Trump, ‘How tall do you want it, and you take care of making it beautiful.’ I have also put together an estimate on this, and it’s sophisticated. It’s like six pages long. We could do it. We’re not asking to do it, but our company, I don’t have to hire an extra man. We’ve got enough people, especially in the wintertime, it’s a little slack and we could build it a mile a day.”

Steve King, Iowa’s Racist 4th District Representative

“One phrase in that long article has created an unnecessary controversy. That was my mistake.”
–Steve King, Iowa’s 4th Congressional District Republican Representative on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives speaking about public criticism of his comments made in a New York Times interview, published January 10, 2019

TRANSLATION: That’s like saying, “Oops! I said ‘jigaboo’ when I should’ve said ‘darkie’.”

Here, in context, is what he said:
“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

Iowa US Rep Steve King speaks at The Family Leadership Summit 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa, a thinly veiled Evangelical political summit sponsored in part by the Helms School of Government at Liberty University. Over several years, Liberty has had their own problems with charges of racism, and the Helms is named after late North Carolina Jesse Helms, himself a notorious racist.

When Steve King speaks about preserving “Western culture” or “Western civilization,” along with an obsessive discussion of birthrates and abortion rates among different ethnic groups, those are

Ed Henry, Former Alabama Republican State Representative, Pleads Guilty To Medicare Fraud Related To Massive Illegal Narcotics Prescription Operation

Corrupt Alabama Republican Politician Ed Henry Pleads Guilty

Ed Henry was a Republican Alabama State Representative from State House District 9, and misused, and abused the people’s trust, and office for personal, private gain.

Ed Henry has decided to PLEAD GUILTY to Federal charges of Healthcare Fraud involving a Montgomery pill mill – a clinic that dispenses controlled substances wrongfully and unlawfully, for non-medical reasons.

According to the indictment, “The practice was a lucrative business venture. In 2014, the practice earned gross receipts of or about $4,352,352.63. In 2015, the practice earned gross receipts of or about $3,292.549.40. In 2016, the practice earned gross receipts of or about $3,087,530.25.”

Earlier, all other involved parties in that case had plead guilty.

ALL PLEAD GUILTY TO FELONY CHARGES

They include:

1.) Dr. Gilberto Sanchez MD (License surrendered) – age 56, of Cecil, AL; 5 counts; plead guilty to drug distribution conspiracy, health care fraud, and money laundering charges

2.) Dr. Shepherd A Odom MD – (License surrendered) – age 78, of Alexander City; 2 counts; part owner of Family Practice, 4143 Atlanta Highway, Montgomery, AL until 2013 when he sold his interest to partner Dr. Gilberto Sanchez MD, though he continued to remain active, and launder money.

NOTE: Doctors Gilbert Sanchez and Shepherd Odom pleaded guilty prior to indictments in late 2017.

3.) Dr. Julio Delgado MD (ACTIVE License; License restricted) – age 56, of Homewood, AL; 22 counts; felony offense, aiding and abetting acquisition of a controlled substance by subterfuge, violation of Federal and State law

4.) Dr. Willie James Chester MD (License surrendered) – age 64, of Pike Road, AL
5.) Steven Edwin Cox NP (License revoked) – age 61, of Tallassee, AL; charged with 24 counts; pleaded guilty to two felony counts: conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and health care fraud.

6.) Elizabeth Cronier NP (License revoked) – age 70, of Montgomery; charged with 15 counts
7.) Stephanie Michell Ott RN (License revoked) – age 42, of Fairhope, AL

8.) Misty Michelle Fannin – Administrator – age 41, of Tallassee, AL, money laundering

9.) Farley Pugh – Office Manager – age _?_, of _?_, pleaded guilty to conspiring to make false statements related to health care matters. NOTE: Earlier, in 2010, the AL Supreme Court ruled in a case involving Dr. Sanchez, and noted that Farley Pugh, who was Sanchez’ employee, had forged the signature of one of the parties in the case, Donna McKinney, in a bond-for-title agreement. 2010 Supreme Court of Alabama, Ex Parte Donna McKinney and Marlin McKinney Petition for Writ of Mandamus, in re: Gilberto Sanchez v Donna McKinney & Marlin McKinney (Elmore Circuit Court, CV-09-900268)

10.) Ed Henry – GUILTY

11.) Lillian Akwuba NP (License revoked) – age 38, of Montgomery; 28 counts TOTAL; 14 counts Health care fraud, aiding and abetting; 8 counts Controlled substance – sell, distribute, or dispense; aiding and abetting; Conspiracy to distribute controlled substance; Attempt and conspiracy to commit mail fraud; 2 counts Controlled substance: sell, distribute, or dispense; Money laundering – interstate commerce; Interstate Commerce; aiding and abetting;

12.) Jacqueline Suzanne Brownfield – Billing – age 33, of Wetumpka, healthcare fraud
13.) Akash Kumar – Billing – age 27, of Montgomery, healthcare fraud

Johnnié Sanders, LPC page

14.) Johnnié Chaisson Sanders – Licensed Professional Counselor – (Alabama Board of Examiners in Counseling LICENSE STATUS UNKNOWN) – age 48, of Wetumpka
Her page on the Healing Hearts Counseling website:
https://mentalwellnesscounselor.com/al/montgomery/johnnie-sanders/

License Number: 3130
Name: Johnnié Chaisson Sanders
Address: Healing Hearts Counseling Montgomery, AL 36117
Work Phone: (334) 425-5371
Expire Date: 7/31/2019

NOTE: In 2009, Ms. Sanders had earlier plead guilty to theft, fraud and aiding and abetting fraud charges in USA v Johnnie Chaisson Sanders, Case 2:08-cr-00204-WKW-TFM. USA v Johnnie Chaisson Sanders

Sanders provided bogus diagnoses of mental health conditions for the purpose of allowing Dr. Sanchez to support prescribing unnecessary medications. Sanders also collected cash payments from patients for counseling services even though she knew that Dr. Sanchez’s office would bill the patients’ insurance companies for the same services. On perjury, Sanders testified before a grand jury and falsely claimed that Dr. Sanchez did not require patients to undergo counseling sessions with her. In fact, as Sanders then knew, Dr. Sanchez required patients who received prescriptions for controlled substances to visit Sanders for mental health counseling.

Related News Releases by the Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Alabama:

Tuesday, December 5, 2017
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/one-physician-and-three-nurse-practitioners-charged-participating-operation-montgomery

Monday, December 11, 2017
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/another-montgomery-pill-mill-doctor-pleads-guilty-drug-distribution-and-money

Wednesday, January 24, 2018
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/nurse-practitioner-pleads-guilty-drug-distribution-and-health-care-fraud-charges

Wednesday, January 24, 2018
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/three-clerical-workers-charged-participating-operation-montgomery-pill-mill

Thursday, March 1, 2018
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/another-doctor-and-nurse-indicted-participating-operation-montgomery-pill-mill

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 –
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/physician-nurse-practitioner-and-nurse-plead-guilty-montgomery-pill-mill-case

Wednesday, May 30, 2018
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/mental-health-counselor-indicted-health-care-fraud-and-perjury-offenses-stemming

Dr. Gilberto Sanchez MD, of Montgomery – Family Practice clinic owner – plead guilty in Federal court to healthcare fraud, money laundering, and drug distribution violations, sentenced to 12 years in Federal prison

Dr. Julio Delgado MD, 55 of Homewood

Nurse Practitioner Lillian Akwuba, 38 of Montgomery

Nurse Practitioner Steven Cox, 62 of Tallassee

Nurse Practitioner, Elizabeth Cronier, 69 of Montgomery

Dr. Willie Chester MD, 65 of Pike Road, plead guilty to one count of aiding and abetting the fraudulent acquisition of controlled substances, admitting that he wrote a prescription for clonazepam, commonly known as Klononpin, despite knowing the patient had no legitimate medical need for the medicine.

Delgado and the Nurse Practitioners conspired with Sanchez to unnecessarily and illegitimately prescribe controlled substances to the patients of Family Practice, and committed health care fraud by causing insurance companies to be billed for unnecessary office visits, which only purpose was to refill unnecessary medications, and that Akwuba conspired with Sanchez to launder money.

Ed Henry was charged with one count of conspiring to pay kickbacks and to defraud the U.S., one count of conspiring to commit health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, five counts of health care fraud and six counts of paying unlawful kickbacks.

Ed Henry owned MyPractice24 which provided non-face-to-face chronic care management services to Medicare beneficiaries with two or more chronic conditions, and contracted with doctors to provided services who would bill Medicare for the services, then pay Henry’s company a share of the reimbursements from Medicare.

Ed Henry entered into an agreement with Dr. Gilberto Sanchez of Montgomery in 2016 in which MyPractice24 provided various kickbacks to Sanchez and his staff in return for referring Medicare beneficiaries to MyPractice24 for chronic care management services.

Ed Henry also assisted Sanchez in paying kickbacks to patients who enrolled in the chronic care management program which were paid by Sanchez by systematically waiving copays that Medicare required Sanchez to collect.

A corrupt Republican and former Alabama State Representative in House District 9 which includes parts of Morgan, Cullman, and Marshall counties, Ed Henry had a habit of saying very stupid things. He was also the state legislator who led the charge to impeach corrupt former Governor Robert Bentley who later resigned under a plea deal with state prosecutors.

Ironically, Henry was absent for most of the 2018 Legislative Session, and attempted to reassure his constituents that his absence was inconsequential by saying that,

The Liar Speaks Tonight

The Liar in Chief won’t tell his subjects these inconvenient official truths.

—//—

“While cross-border migrants often make headlines, the largest number of illegal migrants settling in the US each year is those who stay in the country after their visas expire.

“According to the most recent reports by the Department of Homeland Security and the Center for Migration Studies, a non-partisan think-tank, the number who overstayed their visas has outnumbered those who crossed the border illegally every year since 2007.

“Canadians make up the largest group of these illegal migrants, followed by Mexicans.”

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44319094

Did You Know?

This is what Alabama calls a “hunting accident”:

When you’re so STOOPID that you carry a loaded, ready-to-be-fired hunting rifle in the vehicle, and then “accidentally” git kilt.

Folks must be doing a lot of hunting from their cars in those parts.😳

Republicans Started The Idea Of Government Shutdowns

The “Blame Game” is a popular political football not only in our nation’s capitol, but across the nation in statehouses. The “polarization” oft described by news outlets and “fake news” is a direct result of practices used by Republicans, which began in large part with Newt Gingrich.

You know, the Newt Gingrich who was the Georgia Republican having an extra-marital affair while trying to impeach then-President Clinton for a sexual tryst with White House Intern, Monica Lewinsky. Yes, the same Newt Gingrich who divorced his first wife (Jacqueline “Jackie” May Battley, who was his high school geometry teacher) while she lay in hospital recovering from cancer surgery while he was campaigning in hopes of becoming the GOP’s presidential nominee.

That’d be the same Newt Gingrich who next married a Congressional aide (28-year old Marianne Ginther) with whom he was philandering while married to his first wife Jackie, and asked her to marry him before having divorced his first wife, and then married Marianne a mere six months after divorcing Jackie, who also asked her (Marianne) if she would be interested in having an “open marriage” in which he could have a mistress and a wife.

And yes, it’s the same Newt Gingrich who in the exact same pattern, did the exact same thing when he married his third wife (Callista Bisek) by carrying on a six-year adulterous relationship with her, whom was also a Congressional aide, and then later moved to divorce his second wife Marianne after learning she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and the third wife whom Trump later named as Ambassador to the Holy See, as an ultimate insult, and slap in the face to the Pope, the Vatican, and all that the Church believes in, and stands for. It’d be like naming neo-Nazi/White Supremacist/Holocaust denier to be Ambassador to Israel, or an industrialist to be Secretary of the Interior, or a climate change denier to be administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wait…

That Newt Gingrich.

The same Newt Gingrich who wrote the so-called “Contract with America” which was broken the first day Republicans took the oath of office following their win of the House and Senate – the first time since 1953 – even though they all signed vows that stated “If we break this Contract, throw us out.”

Yeah.

THAT Newt Gingrich.

Now, the Bully in Chief is blaming Democrats because he can’t get his way – which is BILLIONS MORE for a “concrete, rebar-reinforced wall,” which has since devolved into “steel slats,” or even less, a simple “barrier.” Notice how things are changing already? Next thing you know, it’ll be a row of concertina wire spooled across the 1954 miles of U.S./Mexico border.

Frankly, it’d probably be much cheaper, not only in the immediate term, but in the long term, as well. You see, one of the things that NO ONE – not even the Congressional Budget Office, nor the Government Accountability Office – has studied is “how much the upkeep of ‘the wall’ will cost American taxpayers.

But here’s an even more disconcerting thing: The ever-shifting comments of the Current White House Occupant on the matter, which have ranged from this comment from a campaign speech given Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at his Trump Tower office building in Manhattan:

“I would build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border, and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”

To one of his highnesses more recent Twitter rants which was:

“Mexico is paying for the Wall through the new USMCA Trade Deal. Much of the Wall has already been fully renovated or built. We have done a lot of work. $5.6 Billion Dollars that House has approved is very little in comparison to the benefits of National Security. Quick payback!” January 2, 2019

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

Promises.

Lies.

Broken promises.

More lies.

Say anything to get elected, or if you prefer, to get into Lady Liberty’s & America’s pants. The net effect is the same.

Look, I’m no fan of either Gingrich or Trump as human beings, and I think that Trump is vastly out of his league in any government, much less at the Federal level, and as President. He’s told more brazen lies than almost anyone can remember, and has sown confusion in our nation, which is not only demoralizing domestically, but makes us look like buffoons in the eyes of our international allies, and enemies. But, to give credit where credit is due, I think

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

“I will pray,” says one.

“I will act,” says another.

The hillbilly common-sense version of that is “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

“Thoughts and prayers” alone won’t cut it.

Action is required.

Even the many school shooting victims speak from their graves, though the voices we hear are our own, telling us “thoughts and prayers” alone won’t cut it.

As healers, you know that’s true, because

“I now call the House to order on behalf of all of America’s children.”

Having just been administered the Oath of Office for an historic second time, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi D-CA12, gavels the House to order saying, “I now call the House to order on behalf of all of America’s children.”

Nancy Pelosi of California, a Democrat from that state’s 12th District has made history again not only as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, but as the first woman to have ever been twice Speaker of the House. She further joins an even more rarefied group – 7 Speakers who were re-elected to the position, i.e. having served nonconsecutive terms.

The 116th Congress is historic for several other reasons, not just because of

Presidential Indictment

“The people… My people are so smart. And you know what else? They say about my people – the polls? They say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody! And I wouldn’t lose any voters. Okay? It’s like incredible! No… they say ‘Trump’ – we love you too, man – ‘Trump’s voters are by far’… You know the ah… I’m at 68, 69%. I’m at 90% – total. Like, ‘will you say “absolutely”?’ I think it’s 68 or 69%. Will you most likely say… That gets into the 90’s. Other guys are at like 10. A guy like Jeb Bush? He has nobody! But he’s like…at… at… I mean, like… they don’t have people! They have nothing! Ahh… Rubio? Soft. They’re all… all soft. All soft. My people? Stay. Ah, by the way, Cruz? Soft!”

What If I Told You…

That Google knows where stuff is in your house?

Too far fetched?

Not really.

If you have a “Roomba” brand robot vacuum cleaner device, The Great G knows your house layout.

Seriously.

Another Year Over, And A New One Just Begun

Welcome aboard!

Glad to have you in the New Year!

Curious about how the New Year was looking, I messaged some friends in Germany, where it’s 7 to 8 hours ahead of the Central Time Zone. She and their boy were visiting his father over the winter holiday season, where he was stationed on Active Duty with a Special Forces unit.

The “New Year” is often depicted as a babe, a veritable infant, wearing a diaper and banner sash with the year imprinted upon it, while the outgoing year, the “Old Year” (Father Time), is depicted as a decrepit old codger wearing a tattered cloak type garment with a staff.

When I’d earlier messaged my friends, I’d asked if they had any special plans. Not everyone celebrates the incoming New Year, you know. She replied, “Not sure quite what we are doing, there are several parties to choose from.” (Don’t you just marvel at our ability to communicate INSTANTLY to the opposite side of the world!?! Seriously. How great is that!?!)

Several hours later, just about the time when the New Year was dawning in Germany, I sent a message which stated, “How does the New Year look so far? Got any clothes on?🤣”

The reply, “Happy New Year. Hardly. In the hospital. C has a broken ankle.”

Of course, upon hearing such, one would naturally ask, “How’d THAT happen?”

As most might suppose, the typical way one breaks the ankle is by

Ex-NYC Top Cop: Pot “Addictive”

Bill Bratton, Ex-NYC Top Cop, Says Pot “Addictive”

Former New York City Police Commissioner William “Bill” Bratton appeared on a Sunday call-in interview on the radio show “The Cats Roundtable with John Catsimatidis” on WNYM 970 AM (Hackensack, NJ) recently, and was asked about his thoughts on the legalization of cannabis in New York State for Adult Recreational Use (ARU).

William “Bill” Bratton, was NYC’s Police Commissioner 1994-96, 2014-16, and LAPD Chief 2002-2009

He said in part that, “At this particular time, I still strongly oppose it. I think there are too many unanswered questions. We still don’t have effective capabilities in law enforcement to deal with the issue of driving while impaired by the use of marijuana. It is as addictive as any other drug. We don’t really know the full effect of that drug on the development of children. I guarantee that about the same as alcohol is very available to young people, marijuana – particularly the way it’s being proposed in this state in terms of allowing people to grow it in their homes, as well as the widespread distribution of it – young people will be getting their hands on it. There’s the compounding feature of the smell of it. Nobody wants to live in a building, in an apartment building, a public housing project, on the streets, in the parks, with the pervasive smell, which you’ve already started to see an increase in the use of it on the streets. The enforcement lessons of… (unintelligible) There are too many unknowns. And, ah… ” etc.

Fortunately for you, dear reader, I’ve researched the matter, and can address just about all his questions.

He claimed that:

The Government Shutdown is Democrats’ Fault

… and other lies.

Just like it’s the Democrats’ fault that Trump screwed around on his wives.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in part that, “Shutting down the government is something that’s widely disliked by virtually every American and I don’t think we’re going to do it.”

But on Saturday, November 17, 2018 Trump said in part that, “If I was ever going to do a shutdown over border security — when you look at the caravan, when you look at the mess, when you look at the people coming in. This would be a very good time to do a shutdown.”

Then, on December 11, 2018 in the White House Oval Office, in front of teevee cameras, and worldwide press, speaking to Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY) in the Oval Office, Trump said:

Merry F’n Christmas… there’s not enough love on the borderline, or anywhere else.

Musicians and artists are the voices of the prophets.

They ARE our prophets.

Their consciences are often our nation’s collective voice of conscience. For many radio stations, the only profit they care about is traded on Wall Street, and their consciences are not tethered to trouble, or pricked by care for others’ problems. Their profit is all that matters, for their god is green and cold, and easily fits into any wallet. It has crowded out natural love in the calculi of their now-inhuman hearts.

And, for one reason, or another, it seems that these days, there are very few voices “crying in the wilderness,” or elsewhere, about social injustice.

But three years ago – in 2015 – musician/artist Chip Taylor wrote a song entitled “Refugee Children.” It should be heard by everyone, though it certainly hasn’t.

Whether one is a believer in the story of the virgin birth, or any god, the basic fundamental element of that ageless story is that a small family with a young pregnant bride were refugees, homeless, with only the clothes on their backs.

Any well-read person, regardless of any religious belief, or not, should be familiar with the story told in

Does This Trump-Caused Market Slump Foretell Recession?

Of course, the Stock Market is NOT the economy, but for many, it’s the easiest touchstone to consider approximating the economy. And because most Americans are NOT heavily invested in Wall Street, its performance only nominally and indirectly affects them.

However, for those traders whose livelihood depends upon its gains or losses, such as corporate and investment banks, and brokerage houses, speculators, derivatives traders, hedge and other type funds, and the like, it doesn’t portend well.

And then, Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury, while vacationing in Mexico, decided to call on Sunday the CEOs of 6 of the largest banks in America (Brian Moynihan of Bank of America; Michael Corbat of Citi; David Solomon of Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase; James Gorman of Morgan Stanley; and Tim Sloan of Wells Fargo), and then Twitterized it ex post facto. The media managers at Treasury decided to inform the public that… “The CEOs confirmed that they have ample liquidity available for lending to consumer, business markets, and all other market operations. He also confirmed that they have not experienced any clearance or margin issues, and that the markets continue to function properly.”

The Current White House Occupant is Mad at Mnuchin, and wants to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, ostensibly because Mnuchin told POS45 that Powell would be a good choice for Fed Chairman. That’s according to four anonymous people, who were described by Bloomberg News as being “four people familiar with the matter” and speak “on condition of anonymity.” Where I come from, and live, that’s called cowardice. It might be called something else in Trumpanzeeville.

In the days ahead, POS45 will