Friday, October 28, 2016

FBI Resumes Hillary E Mail Probe

The big story of the day is Hillary’s E mails.  The FBI has decided to look into them again because some brand new ones turned up on the computer of the wife of Antony Weiner.  They were investigating Wiener’s sexting activities and showing photos of himself to a fifteen year old girl.  (I don’t know if this is a new incident)   FBI Director James Commee made the decision to resume the investigation of Hillary eleven days before the election.  Right away someone pointed out that the Dow Jones Industrials had been up a hundred points and promptly dropped 150 points on this news.  This means the stock market is uneasy with the prospect of a Trump presidency.   Kuma Abideen or whoever it is (Wiener’s wife) is a high ranking woman in the Hillary campaign organization.  Now Trump is proudly saying “We’re going to right this ship”.   Even before this bombshell hit Trump had been rising and Hillary had been decisively falling in the polls and this event may well make them dead even.  So much for the Hillary celebration of victory ahead of time.   Dire things will happen if the Democrats don’t take the Senate.  My previous blog post was almost prophetic in its warnings about over-confidence. 

First, the context in which the issue of war against Russia has been raised- and if you can’t go along with this backdrop, then you won’t like the coming war.  Syria’s government is allied with Russia’s government, and ‘The West’ is trying to overthrow Syria’s government and is bringing into Syria, and arming, tens of thousands of jihadists there, as the footsoldiers to do it. Syria and Russia are bombing the people that we are bringing in.  The Presidential candidate of the U.S. Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, is a longstanding and ardent proponent of the U.S. establishing a “no-fly zone” over at least the parts of Syria where non-ISIS jihadists — the jihadists that are financed and armed by the U.S. and its allies (mainly by the Sunni fundamentalist royal families who own Saudi Arabia and Qatar) — have conquered territory from Syria’s (legitimate and internationally recognized) government. It’s conquest of Syria, that the U.S. is backing. The U.S., in both law and fact, is already participating in an invasion of Syria.  Syria’s government is run by the ideologically committed anti-Sharia-law and non-sectarian Ba’ath Party, under President Bashar al-Assad, who happens to be nominally an Alawite Shiite (and fundamentalist Sunnis hate Shiites, and all of the jihadists are fundamentalist Sunnis, just as the royal Saudi and Qatari families are), and Assad has always crushed jihadists in Syria — until Barack Obama became the U.S. President.

it was Gary and Shannon doing Proposition 63, the firearms and ammunition initiative.  The many regulations make it seem like a pain in the ass but I guess we need regulations like this to save lives.  I’m voting for it even though Law Enforcement is against it, and I don’t know why.   You’d think cops would want to do everything they could such as get cleared to buy ammunition- to cut down on gun violence.  Then it was Days of our Lives.  Orphius was the mystery magitian at the hospital Halloween party.  Someone passed a note to John Black saying “This is to give to Marlena” and John read it and it said “Orphius is the body that was stolen from the morgue, and he is alive”.  John opens up the disappearing box and nobody is there.  Meanwhile across town- -Hope dressed as Cleopatra was to be honored for her police work.  But then Andre arranged for a tape to be played on a loop of Hope’s voice saying “I killed Stephano - - I killed Stephano”.   This is why Andre was so enthusiastic about throwing this party charity fund raiser.   The moral is never trust a snake. 
We had our resident’s council meeting at two.  I came in a little late because I was wandering around outside looking for the snacks cart.  He didn’t come till later and he came inside also.  They were discussing needed repairs and I requested that someone unclog the sink, which has been getting steadily worse.  Under food services I mentioned the smaller portions they’ve been having the past month however said the last two days were the exception to that rule.  I also mentioned the continued lateness of the breakfast, with the exception of yesterday.  There were lots of requests for tacos and lasagna and tostatas.  Patty covered all of the other categories and several of us mentioned this strange guy who walks down the halls and goes into every room that’s unlocked.   At one point Patty had to excuse herself and go sign something for her sister waiting outside but then came back in because Josie didn’t feel competent to complete the meeting herself.

More evidence comes in that Republicans are dishonest liars.  Now Ted Cruz and other Republican senators are saying that they’re going to go four years of a Hillary presidency and not approve a single supreme court justice.  So they lied when they said “Let’s not make any decisions now but let the American people decide in November”.  And there is a maximum effort to remove Democratic voters from the rolls.  There are fifty thousand here and fifty thousand there.  Greg Palest has been on the full hour with Thom Hartman on this very subject.  Also in the news a woman complained in 1999 about being sexually groped by Justice Clarence Thomas.  Judy was saying how she’s going to vote for Trump “because the packaging isn’t very good but he has the substance”.   What happened to their distaste for interrupters like they accused Joe Biden of doing in 2012?  Now suddenly far worse interrupting in debates is fine.  One issue off the front page now is the fact that Trump said “I want to release my taxes but they’re being audited and I can’t do it”.   How long has this “auditing” been going on?  A year in a half, or ever since Donald Trump has been running for President.  Now there is another new trend because Asians used to vote Republican but now they have “turned Black” and eighty percent of Asians vote Democratic, so they are subject to caging, too.  They’ll contact you knowing full well you are serving in Iraq or some place.   For white people they have ‘mentally challenged” people scrape off the back of the ballots for hanging chad removal but for Black voters they just leave the hanging chads on.  

Thursday, October 27, 2016

One Grim Reality Everybody Is Trying To Ignore

Back in November of 1964 Barry Goldwater went down to a major defeat at the polls.  He lost to LBJ because he was adeptly portrayed as an extremist, particularly on Nuclear and War issues.  If this is the case then how come Donald Trump isn't losing by at LEAST as much as Goldwater lost by.  Goldwater lost to 61 percent for LBJ and 39 percent for himself and the democrats strengthened their stranglehold on the Senate and the House.  Yet is Goldwater were running today he'd be considered a conservative light weight if he was considered a conservative at all.  Goldwater didn't have three wives and wasn't known as a sexist, and he was much less an overt racial bigot than Donald Trump.  Goldwater never advocated so far as I know getting out of NATO or giving Nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia.  It would seem when you look at the Trump campaign the wheels are coming off the wagons.  And yet in spite of all of this- - Trump is only trailing somewhere between five and twelve points- - not twenty two points as Barry Goldwater was.  The obvious fact everyone is missing is that it isn't just white straight males over forty who are voting for Trump.  He wouldn't be putting up the numbers he is without getting an awful lot of support from somewhere else.  Something is driving the Trump phenominon.  The grim fact is that racism, sexism, and bigotry, Islamaphobia, xenophobia and all the rest of it- -is one hell of a lot more popular than anyone in the media will admit.  People like the idea of bizzare tweets at three o clock in the morning.  People like candidates who are in no way qualified and seem "out of control".  Goldwater was a US Senator after all, and I believe he was always married to the same wife.  Goldwater wasn't brash but soft spoken and almost intellectual.  Clearly it's the US electorate that is sick- - and even now might give Trump the Presidency.  If there is even a 25 percent chance Trump will win- - - that figure is far too high.

There is a memo from the Trump campaign that openly states that they are looking for a way to suppress votes next month because it’s the only way they could win. This should come as no surprise to anyone. Former Justice William Renquist was known in the sixties as a rather intimidating taller man that would stand in the polling lines and harass voters with questions about whether they were qualified or not. Now I hear that whole propositions are leff off Florida ballots in democratic counties to affect the results, like on the Solar Panels one, where they want to outlaw selling your surplus solar generated power back to the power grid. I looked up Ring of Fire and got an RT program of fifteen minutes on why the rich should give back to society at the end of their lives. There is a biography of Mike Papantonio. Now Thom Hartman is talking about the rise of repressive measures under the Nazis. “They thought they were Free”. There is a Latin expression that goes “Consider the Ends” and “Resist the Beginnings”. I wonder if this applies to fundamentalist Christianity leading to a trigger happy and bigoted person like Donald Trump. Should one have “Considered the Ends” in the early seventies when Calvary Chapel Christianity first begun? Think about it. Because there has always been this strain of Egoism in the Christian faith that you told yourself you had to learn to ignore and “Not let it bother you” but you couldn’t do that. There is this egotistical sense of “being special” that at times can be suffocating.

This Candy lady from indiginousrising.org phoned in a report from Standing Rock reservation that is like a regular war scene with tanks and guns and helicopters and noise generators. There are bulldozers around and they are being forced to give up their demonstration so that people don’t get hurt. She needs our best wishes. President Obama personally has the power to stop all of this, but he won’t do it, any more than he intervenes in any other situation such as Labor Unions or Black Lives Matter. Does President Obama have the power by executive order to stop construction? If you dump a can of motor oil on the ground in your own back yard you’re trespassing on your neighbor because the ground water seeps into the system and impacts his drinking water.

Sheriff Joe Arpyo of Maricopa County is in legal troubles. He has some contempt of court thing to deal with it. Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt are portrayed in a movie called “Game Change” about Sarah Palin and her relation to the Mc Cain campaign. Nicole cried at the end of the movie and says she can’t bring herself to vote for Sarah Palin. Now Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt have both come out against Trump in this campaign. Newt Gingrich was interviewed by Megan Kelly last night and Gingrich attacked Megan for criticizing Trump claiming that she was obsessed with sex. The tea party right has a new defecter because Megan is leaving FOX and will move to host “The View” where some say she lacks the “motherly” attitude of Barbra Walters. I can only imagine what Shawn said about this event. Trump’s own internal private polling states equally strongly that Trump is going to lose. The polling isn’t rigged. I just hope Trump goes down in flames and utterly, for once and for all, discredits the whole tea party Republican movement. We’ve had enough of their bigotry, their sexism, and their general paranoia about everything. “Ya basta!” as they say.

After lunch Jeff said that his brother used to be on the governing board of Calvary Chapel. I never knew that. But he says that business is the ugly aspect of running a church and at times it can be brutal and Jeff’s brother didn’t like it. Now after Chuck’s death, his wife, Kay, is being cut out without a cent.  Portions of Jeff's story didn't pan out when I checked.  But it seems Calvary Chapel leadership conspired to take Chuck's intellectual property and go against Chuck's wishes.  Chuck's daughter led this lawsuit.  We also hear that Kay, his wife, suffers from dementia.  That's sad if it's true.  Of course Chuck’s son, Chuck Smith Jr. was cut out of the whole Calvary Chapel movement for reasons I still don't know. Chuck used to carry on and gloat about how he turned everything over to God and never had to worry about the mundane aspects of things but instead gloated over these churches that had money troubles and had to beg for money. Chuck Smith is a fucking hypocrite. That’s what he is! It all goes back to that saying “Knowing the end at the beginning” and Jesus’ own words saying “Ye shall know them by their fruits”.

I have been physically hungry. I’m still not happy with the skimpy breakfast. For lunch we did better. We had chicken fried steak with kind of a sauce thing. We were promised a baked potato but all we got was a very few potatoes. We had carrots with that and melting (?) red Jell-O for dessert. When Nora cleaned the bathroom the tried to shove one of Bill’s black combs down the drain and messed up the teeth. What was she trying to do? Today Gary and Shannon did propositions 62 and 66,, which both revolved around the death penalty. Proposition 62 wants to abolish it outright. If proposition 62 gets more votes than Proposition 66 then Proposition 66 won’t pass, even if it passes, and the same works visa versa, too. Even if a proposition passes it has to get more votes than the other one. Proposition 66 reforms the way the death penalty is administered.