Muller Issues Indictments against Manifort and Flynn

Special Prosecutor Muller has handed down at least two indictments we learn this morning, though it isn’t getting a lot of air play.   These were returned by a grand jury so it’s official.  One was campaign chairman Paul Manifort.  The other was of one time administration guy Flynn.  As National Security advisor he’s in the position of a lot of sensitive information.   Both concern the Russian connection and people are naturally assuming these are two of many to follow.  As a liberal I’d just like to see the news flooded with reports of court trials of these people and hopefully a guilty verdict.  Trump is trying to make something out of the “discovery” that Hillary funded the investigation of the “Russian Connection” with Russian hookers and golden showers and all that.   But Hillary only picked up the baton from other Republicans.  And all of the information in this ‘investigation” is either fully verified or unsubstantiated.   Nothing in it has been shown to be downright false.  Now there is a rumor that Trump teamed up with Julian Assange to find Hillary’s missing E mails.  Of course FOX news in their twisted minds is good at making Hillary look bad.  FOX would believe in space aliens if it served the conservative cause.  As to this uranium story about Hillary arranging to sell Russia twenty percent of US uranium reserves, no responsible journalist takes this story seriously.  In other news this White Fish power company out of Montana with just two employees (?) was given a “no bid” contract to restore the power in Puerto Rico.  There is a lot of question of political scandal and apparently the interior secretary is from Montana.  They are paying people several hundred dollars an hour to do the work.  I like to see employees treated well but something else is going on here.  And then we have this Blue Mountain bank or finance agency or whatever - - and I guess they’re a hedge fund.  I’m not sure why they call them that.  But they are the vulture fund that is squeezing every penny out of the citizens of Puerto Rico making them do without vital services such as hospitals and schools.  They buy up bonds and jack up the original rates astronomically.  I don’t see how that’s legal.  If you agree to pay at a certain interest rate and time interval, how was a third party have a right to change that?  I need to Google “Blue Mountain”.  It sounds like a bunch of hillbillies from Kentucky.   These are like Trump's primary support group. 

We have the Civil War in Spain now.  Catalon is a separate language and culture and these people are demanding respect.  People are saying that these ethnic independence movements will become more pervaisive as discontent with a central government increases world wide.  Of course Scotland still wants to be independent and Scotland also voted to stay in the European Union.   I’ve heard of the Catalon language but I didn’t know it was centered in Barcelona.  Of course they had that vote two weeks ago for independence but the military came and forcibly stopped the election.  I know that Catalon is a separate language.  My Spanish teacher talked about it in high school.  Are these the same people who pronounce a “z” as a “th” sound so every time they say the word “azul” it comes off as “a-thul” like somebody hanging a lugy.  

Trump is suddenly concerned about the opeoid crisis, or however you spell it.  That’s all well and good but does that mean Trump wants to reform that law passed by congress to make it easier for the DEA to go after doctor drug pushers?  If you’re a conspiracy person you have to be worried about Trump putting people in NASA who are against “global warming” and will put a stop to weather reports from satellites we launch which give us information on this.  We have no way of knowing what sort of deals with polluters President Trump has actually made.  Apparently Trump isn’t so Paranoid that he’s not afraid to release the Kennedy Assassination material.   J Edger Hoover apparently sent a memo to LBJ to the effect that it’s important for the American people to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  But a lot of the assassination stuff revolves around FBI surveillance of Martin Luther King.  And there is a lot of CIA stuff about tracking Oswald in Mexico City and in Moscow.   Of course we know that Oswald was a member of the “Fair Play for Cuba” committee.   Of course Bobby Kennedy always made public statements expressing total confidence and supporting the Warren Commission Report.  For whatever reason the Kennedy family has always been secretive about this.  

The Houston Astros are up two games to one now and the Dodgers are officially trailing in the Series so it’ll have to be at least a six game Series for the Dodgers to win, and probably seven.  The final score was 5 to 3 Houston and Dodger scoring was later in the game.  I think games six and seven are Tuesday and Wednesday if I count right.  Last night in Houston the Dodgers ran into some bad pitching with their starter who was having an off day and Houston scored four runs.  The Dodgers did better after that holding Houston to only one more run.  In the late innings Houston had a lot of men on base that didn’t score.  The crowd was thunderous.  The game ran a little past nine o clock.  Last night I started watching at the bottom of the first inning.  Maybe I had a little network news on here and there.  I got medication from Leah, and we are still in a peanut butter and jelly drought which has been at least two seeks.  While outside I heard “In Cars” playing on Nancy’s radio.  Alarm bells went off because I had to check and confirm that song was on one of our rock compilations.  It turned out it wasn’t despite an exhaustive search of the words “in cars”.  I ran into other stuff.   So I added the track immediately and got rid of “Dun Ringel” by live Jethro Tull.  Otherwise I had on the tattoo lady on KNBC a little and then there was some Bermuda Triangle thing on CBS later.  You don’t normally think of a nice island being in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle.  

Waiting for the Other Shoe To Drop

I have only heard one reference to the release of all that Kennedy assassination material they’ve been storing for 54 years, and then they said the material would be released later today.   I’m wondering when Robert Muller is going to release all of his findings on the Trump administration he’s gathered over the past year.  Hopefully he’s acquired a lot of good information from now.  The good news is that Muller hasn’t been fired yet and this wasn’t a foregone conclusion.   They are running those ads on the TV now saying for you the viewer to write or call your congressman about getting going on this impeachment move that seems hopelessly stalled.   I think I’ve seen one suggestion of charges to levy against President Trump from Washington’s blog or somewhere.  One day they had reasons to get rid of trump, and then by another of their writers, reasons why we must keep Donald Trump as president.  I’m of the school of thought that says we need to get rid of Trump as soon as possible because I do believe he is psychologically unfit for office.  He brags that he’s gone to all of these Ivy League schools and presumably has passed a lot of mentally challenging courses and thus is a “well rounded college grad”.  But he doesn’t talk like one.  He talks like a truck driver who dropped out of high school.  Sometimes using simple words can be a plus in getting your point across, but Trump has carried this simplistic crudity way too far.  He has not only lowered the bar but I think the bar hit him on the head on the way down.   But Bannon should keep on talking about this vast number of “establishment Republicans who are dead set against this President.   He’s singing the liberals’ song.  It’s just a few isolated Trump in the administration who believe that the majority of Republicans are basically behind him. 

The Rev Chuck Smith used to talk about a mystery of science nobody has been able to solve.  We all learned that the nucleus of the atom is made up of protons and neutrons with electrons going around.  Chuck asks,  why don’t all of those positively charged electrons fly off in all directions and end up destroying all matter in the Universe?  Science has come up with an ad hoc answer of a “strong force” whose sole purpose is to hold all these protons in their place in the nucleus so they don’t go flying off.   These is another mystery of science.  This involves the universal expansion of the Universe seemingly going on forever.   Anywhere you are in this universe, all you see are stars flying away from you.  It’s known as “the red shift” just like the voting machines in Ohio.   Receding light gets shifted to the left or “red” side.  In fact now they say that the rate of this expansion is constantly accelerating and this expansion is now believed to exceed the speed of light, which is something.  Scientists say this can’t go on forever but at some point the Universe will lack cohesion and dissolve.  The writers of “The Priveleged Planet” go further and say that earth HAS to be in a certain surrounding star density.   They say in the direction of Sagittarius it’s too “dense” for life because of some cosmic force there.  My friends from the Federation told me the same thing.   There is also talk about “universal cooling”.  (as opposed to global warming)  So is it that the universe might just become “too cold?”  We then have another mystery involving Black Holes.   I am currently of the school that once a Black Hole forms it drops out of this Universe and can’t grow any more.  It can’t continue to roam through the Universe like a giant vacuum cleaner sucking out stars into it.  But now we have the question as to what happens when two Black Holes collide.  This is said to have been observed happening a couple of weeks back, though all you really see is an artist rendering of the event.  Personally I don’t think scientists have ever photographed a black hole let alone two of them colliding.  This is where gravity waves have been observed and hence is proof of their existence a century after Einstein predicted that gravity came in waves.  But what happens “When Universes Collide”.  It sounds like a good Sci Fi movie plot.   Was this Universe once a Black Hole?  Does the birth of a Universe coincide with the observance of a new Black Hole in the mother universe?  These are questions that science would like to solve.   We’re always learning.  I just wish we’d learn at a faster pace.  

Last night I watched the Dodgers and the Astros starting at the top of the first inning.  The Astros scored first.  Then the Dodgers tied it up at one to one.  The Dodgers scored two more times in the sixth inning so it was 3 to 1.  Then in the eighth there was some bad fielding and the Astros made it three to two.  At this point it was just after eight and I decided to watch “Riverdale” figuring the Dodgers were going to win.  But in the morning I learn that the Astros won the game in “ one of the wildest games ever” and they showed a chronology time-line and video clips of the game.  The Astros tied it in the ninth making it 3 to 3.  But then there was more scoring in the tenth and eleventh innings and the Astros ended up winning the game 7 to 6.   Bones told me that he was rooting for the Astros this series.  At the time I figured the Astros would take one of the five games just like the Dodgers let the A’s have a game in 1988 and won in five.  But then I talked to someone from the Federation who also said the Federation was supporting the Astros.  I still didn’t take it seriously because my faith in the Federation is at a low ebb these days.   The Federation also fixed it go the Giants would beat the Denver Broncos in a game that weekend, “just to prove that they could do it”. 

 There is one issue in finding truth that people often ignore and that’s the idea of simplicity.  Now some say “The big lie” works because it’s so far fetched and complicated that it just HAS to be true.  But the simpler solution of course that “The big lie” itself IS a lie.  People won’t allow themselves to believe that.  One Truth the left can peddle successfully is “The poor and minorities are getting screwed”.  That’s a one-liner that’s succinct and I believe it’s accurate.  Some parents might tell their little boy or girl who asks “You were created because your Mommy and Daddy love each other very much”.  It’s accurate but only to a point and skirts the main issue of sex.  Others would say that Creationism is a “simpler” doctrine then Evolution.  Well, you can make evolution pretty succinct by saying “Survival of the fittest”.  It’s not quite as “simple” as Genesis 1, but it’s close.  Certainly the sun being the center of the solar system is a simpler explanation on sight then the spiral looping theories the Ptolomies had for centuries.   The doctrine of Christian salvation is simple, but it’s also, shall we say, “non apparent”.  That is there seems to be no immediate evidence which we can see.  For this reason I don’t believe this explanation explains anything.   In computer programming there are times when you aren’t as succinct as you ought to be, you may use a lot of redundant variables, or variables that can be reduced down to one variable.  “Global warming” is a simple phrase.  But people would rather deny the obvious than believe it.  I think too many people don’t “look at where the clues are pointing” like that double impostor scenario on Days of our Lives.  They literally deny what their senses are telling them.   There is a theory of classic music that goes “A good symphonic composition will have this quality of inevitability about it”.  That is, that it doesn’t have a “thrown together” quality but seems to be woven from a single organic fabric.  

The Pernicious Nature of Sexual Harrassment

 Norman Goldman is discussing sexual harassment and they are replaying the Male Chauvinist Pig Greatest Hits – woman who have been sexually harassed or assaulted.    The question is how long a lie can continue to exist and the truth being obscured.  With this sexual harassment and “Me, too” stuff the lie of men being “perfect gentlemen” has persisted throughout the decades.  Gloria Alred is a primary spokesman for women’s rights and has reminded us that this is how it was in is for women for a long time.  Women can’t get a job or advancement unless they “put out”.  The police either look the other way or the issues are drowned in legal red tape.   My guess is that “liars aren’t always caught”.  The Truth is not only a short but often long-term casualty of some unspoken conspiracy to suppress it.  Tomorrow is when the Kennedy assassination stuff is going to all be released, but we haven’t heard anything in the news about it today.  I haven’t heard that the event has been canceled. 

You know if Donald Trump really does have trouble sleeping at night as suggested in the John Lennon song, maybe we could make a Dickens carol out of it and have the President visited by three ghosts, John Mc Cain,  the Tennessee senator, and Jeff Flake or whoever who said he wasn’t running for senate again next year.  But you know basic sociopaths don’t have a conscience and I’m sure the most evil people among us sleep very well at night.  “You live with straights who tell you you was king”.   “You must have learned something all those years” - - - of doing the apprentice on TV.  He was relatively sane when he was doing that show and Donald had my respect.  We know that he’s a Johnny come lately to the conservative cause.  Someone “turned” him.  But what did people like Sheldon Addelson and Shawn Hannity “turn him” with?  Was it Jesus?  Did they convince him that somehow Jesus wouldn’t love him unless he became a Born Again Conservative?  These people on the right who “primary” everybody- - and win- -seem to have a great pull and mystique that snares a lot of ordinary people.  But as HJartman and others have said- - these people were never completely normal but always hat that “proclivity” or bent in the back of their brain, a dark place just waiting to be activated.  I can’t truly have a good feeling about “Christianity” till it gets shed of people like Donald Trump and Ted Bundy and others with “Criminal brains”. 

Both Jeff Flake and Bob Corker voted with the banks in that big senate vote last night.  This is a financial rights repeal where you have to go to forced arbitration if they slip it in one of these long contracts that you're forced to sign.  Apparently the vote was fifty fifty and Vice President Mike Pence had to break the tie so the thing would pass.   President Obama had issued an executive order allowing the common consumer to file class action suits against the Banks which screw them over, credit wise.  I had always thought naturally consumers had grounds for a class action suit, but I have learned that there are any number of cases where consumers are barred from class action suits.  If I were President this is one thing I’d fix fast.  There is a lot of screwing over and it all goes back to Ronald Reagan getting rid of the interest deduction on credit card interest in 1986.   The question is what Trump will do to screw the average worker to make up the over a trillion dollar deficit this massive tax cut will cause?  

WILD RUSES AND DECEPTION IN SOAP LAND We had a combo Italian lunch meat sandwich on a French roll that was very chewy, and lots of potato chips.  We had pineapple for dessert.  I had the Gary and Shannon show on including “draining the swamp”.   Melody came by around nine to change Bill’s sheets but Bill was sound asleep.  But she never came back but had left the clean sheets so Bill changed the bed himself.  On “Days of our Lives” Dr Ralph died of a heart attack or something.  Samantha hit him with her gun and then continued to hold it on him while she barked out questions.  Dr Ralph was complying supplying new details of the event.  But now he’s dead and the Salam PD has a lawsuit on its hand brought by the Estate.   Adrian was rescued from Justin and had a nice emotional release, or break-down.  The crisis is solved at the Kiriacus household and there will be no wedding today.  However Bonnie, the impostor, escaped the grasp of the Salem PD, which seems inept at just about everything.  As a follow up Dr Rolf bit down in a cyanide pill just like Goering did with the Nazi trials so his death was self inflicted and there will be no law suits.  In the light of a ton of evidence the Prison authorities at Statesville still won't release Adrian because they still say- - despite overwhelming evidence- - - that Adrian is really Bonnie Lockhart and they need to keep their cell tally at the right level. 

I'm not saying that Christianity got going through the propigation of a lie that everyone just believed without question.   It's more complicated than that It's a combination of events all occurring at once.  There were the very early Christians, who were anti Roman, in the first century like in Nero's time.  If the Church as we know it knew what these people taught and believed and who they were founded by, they would repudiate them entirely.  These are the ones whom Tassitus refered to when he said "They first began in Jerusalem but the ailment then broke out right here in Rome and to this day the sect of the Christians is still not extinct".  Note the wording.   There is another line in there about how "Everything dispized and distasteful ends up eventually in Rome".  But there was an event that triggered another round of resurrection belief and that was the death of Apalonius of Tyannus just after the turn of the second century or just after 100 AD.   The Christianity of Paul centered around Turkey and Greece where the "school of Tyannus' was most prevelent.   I believe there was a real Paul who preached about this time just after the resurrection and ascension into heaven after forty days, of Apolonius.   Gnosticism was just getting going at this time too.  That is, the form of Gnosticism taught by Marcion.  Then there is "the party of the Judaizers" whom Paul refers to in his writings.   There was also a "Syrian Church" that I believe was full of out of work Priests of the Saducee variety, who strictly adhered to the Torah.  This is the group that won out in the battle of wits.  Their Jesus was one who taught against divorce (Paul allowed divorce on two grounds, adultry and desertion) and put in Jesus' mouth the words "Not one jot or tiddle will pass away from The Law until all is accomplished".   This is the group which came up with the theological stance that Jesus was perfect, and because He was perfect then we have to be perfect.  This is what gives the Catholic priests all their power with confession and absolution from sin and all.  

Economic Good Times Are Fleeting

KICKING THE BAR OVER  Rel October 25th.

Make It (Aerosmith)

My City Was Gone (Pretenders)

Who Can It Be Now?  (Men at Work)

I’m the Greatest (Lennon demo recording)

Fools In Love (Joe Jackson)

Rock This Joint (Stray Cats)

In Cars (Gary Newman)

Girl’s School  (Mc Cartney and Wings)

Goody Two Shoes (Adam Ant)

Brand New Key (Melanie)

Some Girls (Rolling Stones)

How Do You Sleep At Night (John Lennon)

Rock Show (Wings demo recording)

To Live Is To Die  (Metallica)

My friends, these economic good times are fleeting.  They’ll be gone before you know it.  But people like Vice President Mike Pence, no doubt at the president's bidding, made a speech saying how great President Trump was and all he had done for the economy already and how he wants to do more if just we can pass his tax plan.  We originally edited this speech to 19:29 (with its obvious implications) though we added a three tracks since them.   And then we added two more and axed the track entirely from the roster.  This speech is as heard on C-Span Tuesday morning.   Just as late July of 2007 we referred to in a blog heading as “These Are the Good Old Days” now we have this recitation of all of the wonderful things President Trump has done for the economy and national security.  Trump is great at delivering a pep talk even if none of it is true.   Thom Hartman today pointed out that after the 1986 tax cuts there was a sharp rise in the stock market.  We mentioned that stocks were overvalued at the time and predicted a pull-back.  As it so happens there was a thousand dollar drop in stock prices from 2700 to 1700, and that was a lot of money in those days.  The market much as Pence and Trump have suggested, anticipated a rise in the economic good times and an overall revival and surge of economic growth.  They are ignoring all the doom and gloomsters out there who point to the fact that stocks have been over-valued for a long time and all of the factors which have gone into making them over-valued such as paying off high priced CEO’s in stock options, decreasing supply for the rest of us.  Last time it took a year for the recession to really get going from when we predicted it.  We’ll see about this time.   Sometimes these recessions sneak up on you. 

 The front photo is of an old man like Mike Pence trying to jump the high jump and kicking the bar off the holder and both falling into the sawdust.  The liner notes are similar reflections as this paragraph.  Of course the title listings are on the back.   These song elections aren’t considered canonized yet.  They haven’t officially met the bar.  And when they do it will be on an all rock compilation.   But it won’t be this album – yet.  We decided that political tracks suck and they get boring but we kept liner notes references.  We decided to substitute one song and substitute "How Do You Sleep" and this is being typed just after six on October 25th.  Of course now we're talking about Donald Trump.  "Jump when Sheldon Adelson tell you anything".  "In Cars" is a late substitution.  

Norman Goldman is on right now and the chief result of these tax cuts will be a ballooning of the federal deficit.  As I have said many times, there is a strange inconstancy with Republicans that when one of them is in office that deficits don’t matter.  This saying was repeated till our ears rang while Bush was president.  Now when Obama becane president.  The republicans of course became obsessed with the deficit. 

I also looked at the Alexander Hamilton Eleven Point Plan for the economy.  Thom Hartman’s name came right up when I Googled the topic.  Thom Hartman on numerous occasions has read off these eleven points called a revamping of the Tudor Plan that King Henry VII came up with in the late 1400’s.   The importance of industrial import terrifs can’t be over emphasized.   The key thing is to hold on to raw materials and export finished goods.  The value of an item is reflected by the men and women who produced it.  Value is a result of labor as well as what you can get for it.  We heed a value added tax of seventeen percent or so like every other country has.  In every stage of production when “value is added” to the product, a small tax is levied.   Nations from Korea to China to Germany realize the value of terrifs to insure the health of their own economies.  

This was a big day on Days of our Lives.  Bonnie Lockhart was unmasked.  Patch discovered she was an impostor.  He had been trying to put the clues together in his mind with Kayla earlier.  Maggie stopped the wedding and then they hassled Adrian alias Bonnie.  She said “Bon” for her wedding vows and called Steve Patch, which his sister never did.  Her true motives of vengeance toward Maggie came out in the open.  Jennifer rescued Eric from his self produced malaise.  Maybe she can rehabilitate him.  Then I went for a lemonade and a graham cracker from Rico.  Bill had Judge Mathas on until three.  They were playing reruns of the show from over ten years ago.  Nora came by and wouldn’t look to see if Bill had bed bugs like she wanted her to.  She said that was Purlita’s job.   I now owe Ron five cigarettes.  Jennifer began calling names on a Monday at one thirty.  She announced Money Draw would be today at lunch.  Larry was paid and he lent me a cigarette.  Ron Flowers gave me a little of his nice, cold Coke.  

John Kelly Can Go F--- Himself

There was a Trump interview by a FOX lady reporter that ran even with the Flash video notice at the top not being clicked to run.  Trump says he aware that some middle class people don’t fare too well under his plan and he says that if he has to he’ll have a higher bracket for the very rich to insure that the middle class is helped.  I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that.  He says “The Rich are willing to give up their tax cuts so that the middle class can get a tax break”.  That’s a little hard to believe.   Trump was asked how soon he wants passage and he said, “At least by the end of the year but frankly I think the signs are that we’ll have final action on this bill significantly before then.”   We don’t need it.  The economy is doing fine and it will balloon the deficit. 

They have been talking about Niger, the nation, the past few days with nobody that sure how it’s pronounced.  As you know four troopers were ambushed there by ISIS sort of like Bengazi.  There are whispers of making another Bengazi out of this incident but the other talk is that Chad may be to blame.  They were protecting the US but then we put Chad on the travel ban list and Chad was offended and pulled their aid in Niger.  Of course President Trump won't talk about this aspect but John Mc Cain and other senators have inquiring minds that want to know.  The Rude Pundit on Stephanie's show referred to his blog of "John Kelly can just Fuck Off" and I've read it and recommend it.  The fact is that Chief of Staff John Kelly kind of did Trump's dirty work for him.   He went on the attack against Congresswoman Wilson about her monitoring the call from Trump on her speaker phone that she made to a grieving Mrs Johnson.  Kelly outright admitted something that Trump wouldn't, that it was common practice to say "He knew what he was signing up for and made the ultimate sacrifice for his country".   General Kelly is a jerk.  He makes arguments out of nothing just like his boss does.

They plan to release secret long held files on the Kennedy assassination, as they had promised to do in a resolution made 25 years ago in 1992 unless the President blocked it for national security reasons.  President Trump does not plan to block the release, which happens this Thursday.  What do you think we’ll learn?   My feeling is that if they've decided to release it they've already doctored up the documents to point away from any conspiracy theory, and this in itself will make news headlines.  You'll be hearing cries of "The Kennedy conspiracy people should give it up for good now".  

I just discovered something about the fifth dimension and I don't mean the Black soul group.  Last night I was chilly in my air conditioned room all of a sudden after six and wondered why the temperature had dropped.  I roused from a drowsiness from lack of coffee while watching the news.  I went outside and noticed the light was already on at six fifteen.  It usually isn't turned on till hours after sunset and it was already on.  I thought of the argument advanced on "Next Generation" about an experiance Warf the Klingon had had about constantly moving from parrellel universe to  parrellel universe.  I mused that perhaps this happens all the time anytime there is a sudden "change in fortune" either for good or for bad.  It would be a way to skate around the "determinism" theory of this Universe.  You may suddenly find a favorite object scratched or else discover gun on your shoe that you don't remember stepping in.  But you know this isn't so because the reverse never happens.  Cracked windshields never become uncracked (except in Christine) and gun doesn't disappear from shoes on its own.  We have to face it that in our Universe good or bad things were always predestined to happened, and if you are psychically astute, you can glean their reality ahead of time.  (Selah)

I caught Rhapsody in Black and they were doing the top thirty songs of 1955.  The last two songs I heard were “Maybeline” and “Ain’t That A Shame”.   This is the first time either of these two songs has been played on this station.  Also “Sincerely” by the Moongolws hasn’t been played on this station.  They had “Pledging My Love” and “Rock With Me Henry” and “Tweetly Tweet”, and all of these songs are kind of 1954 hangover songs.  But I still didn’t hear “Hearts of Stone” by the Charms.  They played ‘I Got A Woman” by Ray Charles and another Ray Charles song.  They played “Bo Didley” and the flip side of the record, which is “I’m A Man” by Bo Didley.  They played “I Hear You Knocking”, and ‘Pretty Little Woman Come a Knock, Knock, Knocking”.  They played “Feel So Good” by Shirley and Lee and “Play It Fair” by Laverne Baker.  Other songs played are “What Are You Gona Do” by Clyde Mc Phatter and the Drifters,  “Flip, Flop, and Fly” by Joe Turner and “Poor Me” by Fats Domino.  They played “Story Untold” by the Nutmegs, and I think there was a third rocky “Fats Domino” song.  But this was all punctuated by break after break to talk about their Skate Night and making bigger pledges.    They claim they don’t take much time with pledges, but they sure do.  

Chris Matthews said that Saturday October 21^st is the fiftieth anniversary to the day of the first big anti war demonstration sponsored by the Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam.  They had Dr Benjamin Spock as a speaker but I don’t remember the others except Matthews said that nuns and mothers with strollers were in attendance.  They were “good people” but the police still attacked them.  I remember hearing in Business Law class the next Monday that they were attempting to “ring the pentagon” as if that would be casting some spell over the building.  Of course now it seems that Savanna High School is in trouble for calling themselves the Rebels.  They had the Johnny Rebel insignia on all of their stuff.  Then of course there is that statue in the center quad.  Are they going to pull that down?  I think this anti Confederate hysteria has gotten way out of hand with political correctness.  I think it was October 7^th or the first Saturday in October that our family got the beige Dodge station wagon.  You don’t see too many beige cars out now.  I think it was the next week we took the wagon down to San Diego to see Grandpa and Grandma.   Of course you can read the Arimid III file for a lot of events in this period, and maybe I’ll paste them over to a blog.  I know in early October there was a missile that blew up from Vandenberg AFB one evening shortly after sunset.  I was watching the missile with my telescope and I saw the very beginning of the explosion right before my eyes.  Soon light from the explosion filled the skies.  

 That K-100 or that rock station is going off the air any week now with Joe Benson and Cynthia Fox and others on it.  They were bought out by a Christian station and I’m sure they are popping their sparkling cider corks and toasting each other over that.  Shawn Hannity had the male star of “Growing Pains”.  I always thought that show was kind of weird.  Now he’s living out his childhood fantasy marrying his on stage childhood star.  They say he’s been married since 1991 or 26 years.  Doing the math on that makes him awfully young like sixteen or something back then.  And he became a Born Again Christian prior to that date.  They are attending some gathering where they can all celebrate the love of God and salute the military and all of that.  Before this Shawn made the accusation that Russia obtained twenty percent of all our uranium reserves.  Don’t ask me how.  He said he presented the evidence but I didn’t hear any of it.  I tuned in too late.  Shawn also said that as far as fifteen agencies of government agreeing there was Russian collusion in the Trump campaign he says it was fifteen individual political appointees by President Obama.  Shawn also said that the FBI is still infiltrated with Obama people.  

They had a thing on Dale Ernheart the racecar driver on Sunday morning.  He met an interior decorator ten years ago whom he fell in love with and is now married to and they have a daughter on the way.  Dale says that he had to learn how to treat women right and ease off on the partying all the time.  He was driving in the same race in February 2001, the Daytona 500 and saw the wreck that killed his father in his rear view mirror.  He took the news pretty calmly but then again it was nearly seventeen years ago.  Dale Ernheart Junior remarked that he favors the football players taking a knee and doesn't believe that all racecar drivers ought to be pegged as having identical politics.  

Master of Puppets

President Trump renigged on his statement that he was in favor of a compromise with democrats to preserve those health care subsedies for the poor who can’t afford the insurance premiums on their own.  There were these two senators who were praising the president for this deal coming to pass.  But later in the day he reverts to this line about “We can’t subsidize insurance companies because this only boosts their stock prices”.  Since when was this president opposed to higher stock prices for industry?   Trump has been dropping these little hints that he wants to compromise with democrats on health care to give us false hope.  But in the end he’s following the Shawn Hannity line about dismantling Obama Care once and for all.  This is what Bannon and all of his friends want, and we know that Trump can’t let them down.  Two years ago I’m not one of these people who had it in for Trump from the start.  My dislike of Trump was an acquired taste brought about by experience.  It’s almost like Trump is a puppet and the puppet masters of Shawn Hannity and Sheldon Addelson are pressing the buttons in his brain triggering their dark hypnotic spell.  They may be feeding off dark impulses Trump always had but his human side up to a couple of years ago was keeping these dark impulses in check.  Trump seems to have no cognitive reasoning at all.  He runs strictly on his subliminal “programming” that controls his every move.  Trump keeps talking about how he’s smarter than his cabinet officials and he’ll challenge them to an IQ test to prove it.  I think the president should take an IQ test.  I’d be interested in the results myself.  I don’t see how we can endure four years of this rhetorical nonsense from our President.  He lives by the tweet and imuendo and gossip.  This is very unpresidential.  He’s making a fool out of himself to every other nation in the world and somehow this doesn’t bother him.  But I don’t know you definitely “prove” to one and all that President Trump is unfit for office.  I hope that Muller files his charges soon.  

Today’s Days of our Lives episode might be called “Master of Puppets”.  Because Victor asked Maggie for a divorce and pretended to be in love with Adrian.  Naturally Maggie and Justin thought Victor had taken leave of his senses.  Another stroke, perhaps.  I am really surprised a hard-ass man like Victor folded so quickly.  It could be of course that the whole incident was a dream.  Is it really that easy for Adrian to pull Victor’s strings with one little threat and I don’t even think the phone call is on tape.  Then we have Nicole carrying through with her plans to break Eric’s heart by telling him she doesn’t want to see him anymore.  Here is a case where there are times when you will believe any silly explanation you know deep down isn’t right.  Nicole says “I’d hate to be a cause of dividing brother from brother”.  That ship sailed a long time ago.  I happened to think of Christianity.  A logical person might well ask the question of “How can imperfect human beings pass judgement or the lack of it on a perfect god?  Logically they couldn’t.  You can’t judge the perfect using the instrument of the imperfect.  Yet they come up with this innovation of the Holy Sprit that comes upon you and gives you temporary infallibility like the Pope- - qualified to set a standard of perfection on “Faith and Practice”, or however they word it.  Then you have that DEA contraversey we talked about in the last blog post.  All of a sudden all drug prosecutions are mysteriously blocked no matter how overwhelming the evidence.  And the “explanation” is “Well you know the law is a little vague on this point”, which it obviously was not.  People are easily led and will accept downright silly explanations for arbitrary or dictatory edicts, or blocking normal progress on a matter.  It’s as though some gigantic force is pulling strings and giving Trump a charmed political carrier. 

It’s time for a triple Trump paragraph.   As you know there were the deaths of these four servicemen in some African country and I don’t remember which one.  But if it had been democrats in the White House I’d have not only the country but the city indelibly etched in my brain because the media would never let us forget it like Bengazzi.  Anyhow this Johnson fellow died and Trump called his mother or whatever and said “Well he knew what he was signing up for when he enlisted”.  This is something we’re all thinking anyhow but nobody would dare day it to someone’s face.  Well some congresswoman was there listening to the call and they were outraged that the President would be so insensitive.  But chief of staff John Kelly chimed in saying that Trump made no such remark.  This seems to be just another of so many cases where the President says something and won’t admit it.  It's like when the President accuses predecessors Bush, Obama and Clinton that they didn't call up the spouses of the fallen troopers.  He had to sort of back off that statement.  First he does the dog whistle and then covers himself with a technicality.  First he runs his mouth and sometimes he thinks about it afterward, and sometimes not.  The NFL has come down with a ruling that they aren’t going to require all their players to stand during the National Anthem.  There will be no firings or penalties.  This is for the best.  I think this should be a matter of individual choice.  Certainly there are a majority of Blacks in the NFL and “Black lives matter” is uppermost in a lot of our minds these days.  Black lives do matter.  Then there was an article in Washington’s blog saying that the president has followed through with his campaign not only kill terrorists but the families of terrorists also.  The blog states that more civilians have been killed under Trump than under Obama.  I’m not sure I can believe everything Washington’s blog says.  This little statistic hasn’t been in the news but if more civilians are being killed now with drones or whatever I think it’s something that congress needs to look into, if they look into anything these days. 

I’m typing this paragraph just after six in the morning.  It’s easy to put Dr Messina’s words to the test.  I complained that at night I had trouble keeping my eyes open these days till nine and then like last night maybe I doze off and don’t even remember what program I was watching like last night where I don’t know what it was on KTLA.  Dr Messina had said it was a simple matter of waiting till ten to go to bed and in the morning I wouldn’t wake up at a quarter of five like I did this morning.  I told Dr Messina I awoke with restless thoughts.  The doctor forgot about this detail.  I should have elaborated.  How do you get rid of “restless thoughts” in the early morning?  I was partially afraid the doctor would give me some new untested medication.  I asked Dr Messina whether it was a matter of some post hypnotic suggestion making me wake up so early.  Of course when you’re psychologically depressed you have anxious thoughts and can’t concentrate.  I started running water for the shower and the towel was in the shower getting soaked.  Sometimes Nora throws them there just for the heck of it.  I made myself instant coffee thinking maybe that would help somehow.  Right now Stephanie Miller is coming on.  Bill is up and was out of the room some.  You know people are supposed to wake up in the morning renewed and refreshed.  I wish that were the case with me. 

Massive Corruption in the D E A

Sixty Minutes devoted two whole segments (thirds) to the way money now corrupts the DEA, which I guess is Dept of Drug Enforcement.  It was about 2011 and they stopped accepting new cases and a total log jam occurred and nothing got done.  It was as if some “force” said “You don’t have enough evidence” all of a sudden even when presented with ample evidence.  Others said that it was a vagueness of the law.  So they pushed a law through congress making it impossible for the DEA to crack down on suspicious drug distributors.  You know like ordering a quarter million prescriptions of oxy-conton in a town of four thousand people or something.  The distributors have made it clear that they set the legal tone and if they want to push opioids on an unsuspecting population then they can.  This bill to ease up on congress sailed through with seemingly no opposition.  It’s as if the entire congress had been bought off by the drug companies.  It passed on a voice vote of “unanamus acclamation” and President Obama signed the bill in 2015.  The thing is not a single Republican candidate used it against the President in the 2016 campaign.  What happens is that all the DEA people defect to the other side and start working for the drug lobby.  When once they worked to clean up the country of drugs now they are working hand in glove with the drug lobby.  It’s disgusting. 

BETRAYAL IN OUR OWN RANKS:  Last week the Washington Post did one report on how they had fact-checked Trump’s message on Iran and found it to be accurate.  Now I don’t believe the post.  I feel as though they have betrayed the liberal cause.  They are claiming that Iran really did aid the Talliban and Al Qaeda and how Iran protected Bin Laden’s son.  According to Thom Hartman Iran announced that they would arrest the perpetrators of 9 – 11 if we would just give the word but instead Bush acted hostelly toward them.  I don’t think Hartman would lie about something so important.  I don’t think a Shiite would work so hard to protect Sunny Muslims.  Right now Norman has come on and he’s saying to give up hope of any early removal of President Trump from office.  My message is “keep the faith”.  “Don’t give up hope”.  President Trump had lunch with Mitch Mc Connell today in Washington and they held a press conference with both of them saying what great friends they are and how they have been friends for a long time.  I think this is conservative PR out to dishearten liberals.  Pretty soon some of these fatalist democrats will be giving up on a democratic congress.  We have to start working right now or this too is in danger of not happening.  But “Time is not an endless river” or whatever Norm claims it is.  We are not the Viet Cong.  We can’t afford another protracted thirty year struggle.  The Republicans don’t need time on their side because when an endless supply of cash funding you don’t need to think in hasty terms.  But for liberals time is of the essence because like an infection, if you ignore or minimize it, it will only get worse and more entrenched.  Think about it. 

On Days of our Lives, Samantha almost filed charges against John and Paul for attempting to dig up Will's grave but when Raphael came he talked her out of it.  I’m surprised these two hugged knowing the bad terms they left on a couple of years ago.  Nicole is now into the unenviable position of lying to Clowie, which I wouldn't do.  I'dd tell Clowie the whole ugly story and trust her to keep it confidential.  I'd feel a lot better being able to confide in someone for what Brady has done to her with his emotional blackmail.  And Clowie might even side with me that Nicole should call Brady's bluff and not be cowed by the blackmail.  Eli was hired on by Hope as Raphael’s partner as detective.   I wonder if they are going to bring back Samantha’s three surviving children on the soap opera.  When last Samantha was on the show it was right after E J died.  This would be late 2014.  At that time Johnny and Alley were about eight and nine at best.  Sydney was about four.  Logic would dictate that now when they bring them back Sydney will be seven and Johnny and Alley will both be either eleven or twelve.  But they don’t have eleven year old kids on this show.  It’s against someone’s religion.  They routinely skip from about age eight to age seventeen or on the verge of graduation from High School.  They won’t be able to use the same actors. 

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST  The permanent campaign has long been a staple of politics in this country, the idea that running for office never stops and that decisions are shaped by what will help one candidate or another, one party or another, win the next election.  President Trump has raised this to a high and at times destructive art. He cares about ratings, praise and success. Absent demonstrable achievements, he reverts to what worked during the campaign, which is to depend on his own instincts and to touch the hot buttons that roused his voters in 2016. As president, he has never tried seriously to reach beyond that base.  These moves will earn him accolades from the people who supported his candidacy last year, which might be the principal objective. But neither action solved a problem. It will be left to others to do that, if they can. In a few hours, the nation and the world got a double dose of what Trump’s frustrations can mean in terms of their impact on important issues.   Those were only two of the moments that defined the president’s disruptive style of leadership in just one week. It was, after all, only a week ago that the president started aTwitter war with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). The tweets resulted in Corker firing off a snarky tweet in return and then bluntly calling out the president’s character and fitness in a New York Times interview in which he warned that the president’s recklessness could result in World War III.   It was also within that week that the president, with an assist from Vice President Pence, escalated and perhaps seized the advantage in his feud with professional football players who kneel during the national anthem. Amid outrage from his critics, Trump has managed to turn an issue that once was about police violence in minority communities into a cultural battle about patriotism, the flag and pride in the military. His critics are now on the defensive.  The week saw one other example of Trump’s governing by pique. Hours before the steps he took on health care, he lashed out again at critics of his handling of the hurricane cleanup in Puerto Rico, tweeting that he would cut back the federal response. Like many of his tweets, it is no doubt an idle threat, but one nonetheless designed to give a jolt of displeasure to the status quo.  Trump’s Twitter feed is an obsession, both for a president who finds release through 140-character blasts at opponents or enemies and for a media trained to jump at the moment the tweets light up smartphones. But his actions on health care and Iran were reminders that the most consequential steps are those in which he is attempting to reverse course on policies without a clear sense of a path to success.

Details of Trump's Budget Revealed

At six in the morning (Thursday March 16th)  we heard the news that two Judges overturned the second travel ban of the Trump administration.  This is the version Trump referred to as the “watered down” version and he made it clear he’d have preferred the initial broader travel ban of refugees and other Muslims coming to this country.  In a speech delivered last night and played on the Shawn Hannity show Trump read from the US statute that any President can decide on his own which minorities are dangerous and should be barred from coming to this country.  The point here  is that all Trump has to do is open his mouth and speak for a Judge to know the INTENT of both the first and the second travel bans and how the intents of the two are identical.  If I were the judge I'd at least want to be given a little wiggle room where I could approve a travel ban and be able to rationalize it constitutionally.  The other news breaking at about the same time was more details on the US budget.  The pentagon gets an extra 45 billion in funding.  One can only imagine what new killing machines we'll be able to develop with that.  We know how they waste money on new weaponry they only end up discarding in a couple of years.  The Military will get a ten percent hike and Homeland Security will get a seven percent hike and veterans will get a six percent hike.  Other agencies will suffer.  “Meals on Wheels” will be eliminated entirely, even though it is mostly funded from other sources.  I keep thinking of this cartoon with the roller skating mice that are headed to the open mouth of the cat, and he says to God "Thanks a lot for the meals on wheels".  The Environmental Protection Agency budget will be cut by a third and even agriculture subsidies will be cut substantially.  Norman Goldman insists that congress won’t pass these draconian cuts because their people back home won’t let them.  I’m not confident one bit Norman is correct.  We democrats have to make this budget a campaign issue, to elect democrats, so we won't have this problem two years from now.  In terms of the Health Care bill, the odds of passage there are fifty – fifty in the House, and it will likely fail if it gets to the Senate.  Now Trump is saying the terms of the bill are negotiable.  He’s flexible.  Washington’s blog’s headline is that the Mainstream Media has been merged with the CIA and has been since the 1950’s.   As nurse Ratchet would say “That’s a really challenging statement”.   I think the first noticeable change in the news media was in Gulf War I in the early nineties where we are all hyped up with patriotism.  But that wasn't nearly as bad as post 9 - 11 and often stories would come up but then they'd be immediately surpressed because they didn't fit in with the Bush narritive.  Then of course the media bias became obvious in the buildup to the Iraq War of 2003.  

On the news last night they were talking about all the areas with budget cuts including the State Department, of all things.  Some things like climate change research are eliminated entirely and Trump’s henchmen make this moral case of an out of work coal miner or something (?) saying will he give his hard earned money for the NPR or the national endowment for the arts, or whatever?   A better question is whether that coal miner will give money for Donald Trump’s golf course outings or all of the jet fuel and extra security to travel to Florida all the time.  I think we’ve figured out that Trump and those in power are devoid of compassion for the human race.  They don’t care about clean air and water, or getting adequate medical care, and have decent roads to drive on and parks and such to visit.   So far Trump’s war policy is a blank slate.  But this far (two months) into the Bush administration we didn’t know much about Bush’s foreign policy either- - only that he was against the practice of “Nation building”.  For a while people in the tea party expressed a bias against “being the policemen of the world”. 

I’d like to talk about Thom Hartman’s commentary this morning about dopamine and how it’s quieter on airplanes nowadays because people are obsessed with texting and playing their video games.  Teenagers are less inclined to try drugs if their minds are addicted to a certain video game, like that Star Trek episode they had out a couple decades ago or so.  The trouble is I’d like to go back to that old adage of “When you’ve got your health you have just about everything”.  If you’re feeling in the pink- - and have enough B vitamins including B 12 and the Co Q Ten and all the rest- - and aren’t suffering from the ravages of any virus, then you have the energy to go out and do all that other stuff.  You’re ready to go out and start new relationships with women- - or do some of this Ron Rhodes stuff from decades back such as church baseball games or bowling or miniature golf or river rafting or scavenger hunts or playing board games.  Some people could argue that people like Ron and Gina are fixated at a junior high level or something before you’ve discovered dating the opposite sex, and all that goes with it.   For that matter you’re more inclined to explore the internet for video games, or tinker around with some new mathematical formula in BASIC or Excel, or do a Power Point- - - if you have the mental energy to do it.  If chewing coca leaves will do all that for me, I’m game.   I too would like something organic, in conformance with nature- - that won’t be horribly addicting.

I don't know about "The Art of Dying" but what a lot of people, notably Christians, celebrate is the art of not living, not really.  Maybe it was thirty years ago- - when Bob and Bonnie were still alive- and the conversation came to the topic of "If you could live forever in your present body, would you do it, with the right medical advances".   The inclination of everybody was to said No they wouldn't.  But when you figure what the alternative is- - non existance, the choice doesn't seem like such a wise one.  I remember a conversation I had with Pastor Halliday where I hinted that perhaps my own decisions have been affected by my belief that Jesus was coming back, and may have made other decisions.  Pastor Halliday thought I was a fool for even thinking along these lines at all.  (This says more about him than it says about me) People assume you're going to heaven when you die and will be as smart as God is and will know all of the mysteries of the Universe at the drop of a hat- - and able to best any scientist at his own game.  There are hints of this sort of reasoning in the Bible such as "You will know- - even as you are (now) known".  But as I said a few weeks back- - you might just be in the form of some "psychic energy" that has a will and is driven by it, but no actual brain capable of introspective thought.  So you're forever looking for some human brain to hook up with and perhaps control.  It's kind of a cop out to say "Eye has not seen nor ear heard the wonders that wait for us after we die".   People have this tendency to loath a void and start filling in the blanks, not with actual knowledge - but with their own wish fulfillment.  Think about it.  

Virginia Tech was eliminated last night by Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament.  I watched some of this late game but didn’t see the ending.  In the early game Villanova beat Mt St Mary’s.  Bill is not into the NCAA tournament.   I’ve been fighting this virus or whatever.  Maybe I have more than one virus- - a cough virus and Epstein Barr or something.  What I need is a comprehensive blood test.  There was a substantial medication line with Ida even after seven thirty.  [late note] "Hyperlexia" is the term of the day from Thom Hartman.  It means people who talk a lot of hike up their dopamine levels.  People who post a lot do the same thing. [ ]  I got my cough medicine and a turkey sandwich.  I think channel two was showing another game when I got back.  It was a dash of “Wheel of Fortune” and then it was “Bones” but since I hadn’t had any coffee I was drowsy and not alert and turned the TV off at nine.  I got up at five thirty in the morning, woken by commotion in the hall.  Bill borrowed a cigarette from me and Ron Flowers borrowed a cigarette from me.  There was a substantial medication line with April but I finally got my cough medicine.  I turned on Stephanie Miller and it was Fridays with Fugelsang.  I opted to spend three dollars in cash for a dollar coffee and cigarettes at the liquor store and went into the dining room.   Paul gave me a second helping of oatmeal and I had the sugar for it.  Then we got our scrambled eggs and a whole English muffin that was actually hot, with butter and jelly.  Melanie was erratic with the coffee taking forever on the other side of the room.  Judy got up and got two cups for herself.  Melanie made it around the room almost and she ran out and got more coffee and she said “Who wants coffee?” and I said I did and she says “Wait” but I got up and grabbed a cup while she was still serving the big mugs before going to the little cups.  After breakfast Bill gave me a little coffee with orange juice in it.