Archives for March 2019

Day 794

March 12, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 794 Monday March 11, 2019

602 Days to the 2020 election and 680 Days to Inauguration Day

The howls on the right are increasing to finish up the Mueller probe. There are mimes saying stuff like the only thing Congress is doing is spending money investigating one another.

Isn’t that interesting? (Okay, it’s not. But say it in a Church Lady voice and it gets better.)

Let’s review:

Mueller has charged a bunch of people and organizations. Some have been sentenced to jail. Additionally, he has referred cases to other prosecutors that have uncovered other criminal activity, which is not part of his purview, but do show a pattern of deceit and contempt for not only our laws but our fundamental sense of fairness and what it means to be an American. Nothing illustrates that more than the boob in North Dakota who is a Republican operative and alleged boyfriend of Russian spy Martina Butina. I say alleged because Martina complained to her Russian handlers about having to be around this fellow. He had a way of making money, which was sending out mailers with patriotic names and making promises of good deeds and patriotic stuff. Once he got the check; he cashed it and moved on.

Of course we could look at Paul Manafort who laundered money for Russians and Ukrainians and did the dirty political behind the scenes stuff for the dirtiest of dictators and got a light sentence for it.

We could look at the Republican behavior toward the Democrats for the last three decades, starting with Whitewater. It is worth going back and reading the Wikipedia article on Whitewater. What it shows, among other things, was a persistent attempt by rich right wing people with no real interest in the American people to go after and hound the Clintons. Again and again the Clintons were accused and they were found to be innocent, or at worst, there was no credible evidence. This did not stop the false accusations and conspiracy allegations however. Finally, Ken Starr who was the second of three special prosecutors who finally left the investigation to hide out at Pepperdine University after there were complaints regarding him and sexual misconduct, admitted under oath that the Clintons were completely exonerated of any wrongdoing in two matters that had been ginned up by the right wing media and the Republicans. They were called Travelgate and Filegate. Somehow, Mr. Starr had forgotten to mention this at the time that it would have been appropriate to do. It was an “Oh by the way” admission as he was going out the door.

Hillary Clinton was asked under oath about Whitewater and her candid and fully truthful answers were applauded at the time. Not that this stopped the Republicans or right wing from continuously attacking her.

When all was said and done a few Arkansas folks were found guilty of financial crimes. The Clintons were never charged and not found guilty of any wrongdoing. There was grumbling that they or their lawyers had not been helpful enough.

This kind of attacking of the Clintons continued into her campaigns for president. She at one point said there was a vast right wing conspiracy and this outraged them, but of course, there was and there still is.

Then came Benghazi.

But let’s review the record on Benghazi. There was:

– An FBI Investigation

– Senate Committee investigation on Intelligence

– House committee investigation #1

– House committee investigation #2

– House committee investigation #3

– House committee investigation #4

– House committee investigation #5

– State Department Accountability Review Board

– Senate Committee investigation on Homeland Security

– House Select Committee

What did they find?

The administration did not adequately deploy resources to protect the staff.

What they forgot to mention was that the Republicans in charge of much of the investigating were the same people who voted to cut funds for security and to cut security positions from the State Department. Republican representative Issa and Chaffetz who were at the center of the House investigations were also the ones who voted to cut over half a billion dollars from State’s security budget. Issa voted to eliminate 300 security positions from State. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State went to Congress repeatedly to beg for funding. She was denied. She warned the Congressional people that this would have consequences for national security. When it did, those self same Congressmen tried to blame her.

The people guarding the compound in Benghazi were contracted through a British firm and were armed with flashlights and batons. Hardly, what was needed against a trained group of armed terrorists.

This continued into the seven Benghazi hearings that the Republicans held. The facts were known after the first hearing. Actually, before the first hearing, but this didn’t stop the Republicans from holding hearing after hearing, but for the record let’s review the House Select Committee:

First Hearing September 17, 2014 Trey Gowdy chairman.

December 2014 Chairman Gowdy announced the hearing would continue into January, February, and March of 2015. Gowdy said they would be interviewing 20 Obama administration officials. He said in February that they would be questioning why the State Department was in Benghazi. The hearing was not held. By April he had interviewed none of the twenty and had said they were shifting their focus from the attack itself to reviewing policy decisions by Clinton a few days before the attack. By June they had interviewed 29 witnesses. It was clear to Elijah Cummings that the purpose of the long drawn out investigation was to attack Clinton and her campaign for President. Gowdy said it was the slow response of the Obama lawyers to requests for documents. This was not shown to be true because the committee didn’t ask for documents until mid November 2014 from State and mid April 2015 from Defense. At this point Gowdy said the hearings would continue through 2016.

What did they find? Well, not much and what they did find they tried to redact the testimony to try and show Clinton was somehow to blame for their own lack of funding which had led to the debacle.

One State official at the time said that it was not the danger at the outposts that worried him, but rather the problem from people in Congress that were supposed to be helping him and others.

Kevin McCarthy, head Republican in the House, admitted that much of the Benghazi hearing were to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Way to go Kev! You did it.

What is especially egregious about all this is that you can say what you want about the Clintons. Maybe they skated close to ethics or legal things, but the Republicans that were accusing them were doing the same sorts of things, really doing them, not skating near the edge at all. They were doing those things while investigating the Clintons. Be it Whitewater or Benghazi or Bill’s sexual misconduct – what the Republicans were doing in each and ever instance was much much more egregious.

Whitewater was at best an uncovering of some local corrupt state officials. Compare that to Manafort, Flynn, and Trump who were not only doing dirty deals, but endangering the country. The scale of their crimes is off the charts compared to whatever the Clintons might have done. Remember the outrage over Hillary Clinton having her picture taken with a contributor to the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State? So what if it was normal for a Secretary of State to have photo taken with a person in his position? He was also a contributor to the Clinton Foundation!

Meanwhile Matt Whittaker was being paid hundred of thousands of dollars so he could have a FLA (Four Letter Acronym) after his name while going on Fox News to espouse his silly claims. And while Bill Clinton was being blasted by Gingrich for having an improper relationship with an intern; Gingrich was having an affair himself and a bunch of his Republican representative buddies were staying in a row house in D.C. that was supposedly owned by a church (I guess to avoid taxes or maybe they could claim the rent as a charity donation?) and they were using the house for their affairs. All the while condemning Bill and claiming to be upstanding Christians.

While Chaffetz was outraged and very concerned about Hillary’s private email server he was using one himself. It was printed on his House of Representatives calling card.

So please.

The current outrage over the time that Mueller is taking for a criminal investigation (not a House or Senate inquiry) is taking less time then you boys took to investigate nothing and he is finding lots and lots of criminal activity that seriously undermines our fundamental democracy not to mention the money stolen, laundered, and fraudulently absconded with…Unless you can show me your concern when the Republicans went on and on about nothing.

Stuff it.

I mean, I think we should let the investigation play out and let the chips fall where they may. Don’t you agree?

And please stop posting those silly memes saying how much this is costing and can’t Congress do anything but investigate the other side? If you look at some of the legislation and resolutions being passed in the House you’d see they are doing quite a lot.

The Senate? They aren’t doing squat because the Republicans control it and they aren’t about to help the American people. No sirree. Gotta serve our masters. And that’s not you.

602 Days to the 2020 election and 680 Days to Inauguration Day

PS https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/29/politics/benghazi-committee-special-counsel-robert-mueller/index.html

PS Tikal, The main plaza with Temple #1

Day 793

March 10, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 793 Sunday March 10, 2019

603 Days to the 2020 election and 681 Days to Inauguration Day

Well, okay. Before I get to it, we need to have the basis in facts, or the fact basis, if you will.

R. Kelly is a name that keeps popping up in the headlines. He’s apparently a musician whose music I have never heard. However, his main claim to fame via the headlines is that he has sexual encounters with underage girls. The word children is frequently used in connection with Mr. Kelly. Not underage but children.

Everything else I know about R. Kelly I learned from the SNL skit that opened last night’s show.

Neverland the TV documentary was released and it apparently outlined Michael Jackson’s weird sexual behavior toward young boys, and the even weirder part that parents let him sleep with their children.

In old news Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, was arrested for frequenting a massage parlor that apparently dealt out sexual favors. There are rumors that Mr. Kraft is on tape receiving some such favors. I mean you can say you didn’t know the first time – maybe.

It turns out the girls at the parlor were from China and tricked into coming. They were made to sleep on the massage tables and had to cook food out back of the strip mall where they were housed. The woman who owns the massage parlors has been photographed with Donald Trump in the White House (or was it Mir-a-Lago?) watching The Super Bowl. She has also been publicizing that she can get you access to the president for a price.

It is also rumored that many Florida Republican representatives have frequented this lady’s establishment.

And let’s not forget that Paul Manafort got less than four years when the guidelines called for 20 to 24. His crimes? Stealing $50,000,000.00 and committing acts that some have called treason, and working for the dirtiest of dictators, lying to the Feds, etc. etc. etc. The judge said he has led an exemplary life. (It has been pointed out in example after example that others have received much harsher sentences for far less criminal behavior. And that those folks were generally not white. )

In old old news the Kushner family was trying to sell access to Trump in China,

And in really new new news it has been reported that Jared Kushner is far more unethical and evil and much dumber than Dick Cheney. That’s going a long way!

So given the above “facts” I would like to begin this screed with a diatribe.

What is wrong with America? We are allowing immigrants to come into this country illegally to take good paying jobs from us, god fearing Americans.

Okay that’s enough.

Nothing else to report.

Except the jobs numbers. So much winning. Estimates for jobs created last month was 200,000. Reality was 20,000. Lemme see, gotta do some subtraction. Anyone got a calculator? Lots of zeros. Um. If my math is right that’s a shortfall of 180,000 jobs. What happened? No one knows. Tune in next month.

See if the Chinese hadn’t snuck in here and taken away the need we could have backfilled with Americans. Some say that illegal immigrants are doing the work that Americans don’t want to do. I get that. But I’ve seen reality TV. I think they’d do it.

Oh yes, turns out a reporter had the story on the affair of Stormy Daniels and Trump before the election. She worked for Fox. Rupert killed the story because he wanted Trump to win. That’s fair and balanced. The reporter had more and again it got killed. Way to go Fox. And the Dems don’t want to let them hold one of their debates. Wouldn’t you love to see Kamal Harris go toe to toe with Sean Hannity? How long would it be before Fox cut away to ice dancing? Or maybe their new reality TV show “Blowjobs for Bucks!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen here’s your guest host Harvey Weinestein with a special appearance by Bill Cosby!”

Ah yes, we can sink deeper.

Let’s watch Dragon X re-entry again. Please. A great immigrant movie.

603 Days to the 2020 election and 681 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Getting cleaned up!

Day 792

March 9, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 792 Saturday March 9, 2019

604 Days to the 2020 election and 682 Days to Inauguration Day

Matt Schlapp was on Bill Maher. He’s the conservative from Kansas that runs CPAC. It was interesting to hear this guy because of how he minced and nuanced somethings and how he didn’t on other issues. The main point that he made was “Hey Trump got elected based on saying he would do certain things and on every major promise he’s done those things.” This is what the guy said – essentially (I didn’t look up the exact quote.) This leaves me in the position of wondering: “does he really believe that?” The “that” can cover several cases:

1) Does he really believe that Trump has accomplished that which he promised to do or

2) is Schlapp trying to pretend he has?

There is evidenced for both and herein lies the dilemma with trying to talk with people who like Trump. They merrily switch between believing he has while denying the facts, and knowing he hasn’t and not caring. All the while ignoring or pooh-poohing real issues.

There are two places that Schlapp exhibited the behavior I’m talking about. First was when Bill asked him about the wall. Schlapp said they are building the wall. Bill said they aren’t. Matt said that every year they have gotten money for the wall. Well, that’s a clever pivot! Getting money for fence repair or whatever ain’t building a new wall, but Matt is happy with that, or pretends to be. It’s enough of a fig leaf for him to be able to hide behind.

Second was he mentioned in a small slew of things Trump has “accomplished” is a tax cut. Well, Congress passed a bill, called a tax cut, and it is – for the wealthy. Everyone else gets screwed. Is that a tax cut? I guess so. The idea was sold under the guise that it was going to rev up the economy – it hasn’t. That everyone was going to benefit – they didn’t. And that the deficit was going to go down because of it – it’s ballooned. Plus, revenues were going to go up tremendously – They didn’t. The economy would be at 4% – it’s not. The money corporations were going to get back would be put into rebuilding America’s infrastructure – didn’t happen.

So yeah, there was a bill. The bill had in the title “tax cut” or was referred to as such, but was it? No.

What worries me is that people like Schlapp are slick in wiggling around the basic truth. Why they want to do that we can debate, but the problem I see for the rest of us is that these people have a hidden agenda that they masquerade as many other things. This is a power grab and distraction. The real thing that is going on is the widening gap between rich and poor, between privilege based on race, wealth, and parentage versus equal opportunity. We have to look no further than the sentencing of Paul Manafort for evidence of that, but in fairness to the judge, I have heard that he is for reduced sentencing for many crimes. I’d like to see what his record is for poor black drug offenders – for example. But if Manafort’s sentencing was applied to all those who have gotten sentenced and were reduces percentage-wise to the sentencing guidelines then we’d have something. (that would make a sentence be 20% of the sentencing guidelines.)

There were several things of interest on the panel discussion of Bill’s show.

One was the analysis based on poll percentages that Trump could win in 2020. He’s at 41% and that’s where other presidents were at this time in their first term who won a second term. Wow.

Two was the discussion about the muslim woman in Congress who made disparaging remarks about Jews and Israel. There are two distinct points that were being made. One was that she was criticizing Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians. The other was the argument that she was a slur against Jews that has been used for many centuries against the jews around the world and was in fact used by the Nazis. That slur is that the Jewish people are more wedded to Jews than they are to whatever country they are living in. This is referenced in many different ways by folks who want to make this point, typically it’s obliquely referenced as some great world-wide Jewish conspiracy, etc. But it’s been out there for literally centuries. In fact, the Nazis really didn’t have to do much to play on people’s fears because most of the ground work had already been done by the retelling of this kind of stuff. Couple that with the fact that around the time of the rise of the Nazis many of the rural population of Russia was uprooted and forced to move into urban areas. Many of these people were Jewish and most were unsophisticated. Dislike was easy to foment.

It’s also hard to try to make a deal with someone who believes that what’s yours really should be mine. This is the view of the Palestinians toward the Israelis, and they have reason to believe this. And it is also the attitude of the Israelis toward the Palestinians and they have a religion that tells them this. (I know. I know. Please, save your breath.)

But it is also the basic negotiating ultimate position of so many peoples and regimes around the world.

The point being that the Muslim Congresswoman brought up some legitimate questions but then wrapped it in an old stereotypical ethnic slur. Not cool. It is also true that she has said things about Saudi Arabia that are similar to what she said about Israel, but that doesn’t get anywhere near the attention that her Israeli comments receive.

Then there’s the really fun thing. Tom Steyer has run some ads in Mark Meadows’ and Jim Jordan’s districts pointing out what little shits there two are. Both of those districts are poster children for why we need to get rid of gerrymandering. Jordan’s district is a skinny little tract of land that runs north south through the middle of Ohio. It’s very very conservative. Meadows has a similar conservative makeup. And here’s the thing, both of these right wing, Freedom Caucus founders could be primaried from the right. I don’t know how you can become more out of touch, obstructionist, and nutty right wing than these two but if anywhere in America can do it I trust those two districts to be able to show us. At least Steyer is pointing out to folks in those districts how anti-American and hurtful to the American ideals there fools are. Will it make a difference? Maybe a little. Ya gotta start somewhere.

And lastly, the most inspiring thing I have seen in a long time was the touchdown video of DragonX, Elon Musk’s space capsule, after leaving the International Space Station. Wow. Wow. (“Hey Clyde, we gotter git rid of deem immigrants. Dey not only stealin’ our jobs, but they’re makin’ us look bad. Creatin’ whole new industries and such.”)

Elon Musk created Paypal. Sold it for billions and took that money and invested it in America. You know like what the tax cut bill was supposed to do. He really did it. What did he create? A solar company, A car company, A rocket company, and in his spare time he’s proposed a tunneling company. This ain’t a guy who got rich making a app that puts a funny hat on someone’s photo. This is big hard to do stuff. And he’s an immigrant. This is the kind of person the Trump wants to keep out of our country.

604 Days to the 2020 election and 682 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Dragon X – Reentry and Splashdown!

Day 791

March 8, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 791 Friday March 8, 2019

605 Days to the 2020 election and 683 Days to Inauguration Day

More Strangeness – the New Normal

The other day one of the news shows put up a chart entitled “Alleged Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

There were five categories and 28 specific allegations under those five categories.

The categories were:

– Obstruction of Justice

– Conspiracy

– Campaign Felonies

– Corruption

– Abuses of Power

Under corruption one bullet is “Used Presidency for Personal Enrichment”

Nowhere in the list are his shady and corrupt dealings before being president or as a candidate for president listed.

Not mentioned are his tax returns, his inflating and deflating property values to commit bank and insurance fraud. Nor is the Trump University or the Trump Organization money laundering mentioned. Nor is the fraudulent use of a charity organization mentioned. These five categories only mention the stuff while in office and as a candidate and they only relate to his political activities and personal enrichment at that time, and it doesn’t cover all of it.

The next day his campaign chairman got sentenced to jail time. He should have gotten between 19 1/2 to 24 years and got less than four, which is outrageous, but he’s going to jail.

Meanwhile North Korea is observed building out one of its nuclear sites.

The Homeland Security chief sees nothing wrong with separating children from their parents and says there aren’t any cages holding children. Her interpretation of a chain link fenced box with a concrete floor is that it is a detention center, not a cage. Gee, good to know. I think if the police busted into a house and found the parents were keeping kids in such detention centers there might be a problem.

I put a note on Facebook the other day wherein I mentioned three candidates running for the Dem nomination for president. I got some feedback! Because my comments weren’t positive I was told not to split the party or drive a wedge, and if I had nothing positive to say I shouldn’t say anything. Really? I thought it would be a good thing to mention stuff that made me stop and think whether I thought a person would or would not make a good candidate. I didn’t eliminate any one but suggested in two cases a thumbs down icon be awarded, like the Pinnocchios that get awarded for half truths. I was surprised. I thought having a good discussion about the pros and cons of the candidates would be a good thing. At some point you are going to have to choose. How are you going to do it?

I think we should have a conversation about all of them:

John Hickenlooper – Interesting guy, beer brewer, has some unusual ideas

Jay Inslee – Running on Climate change as his main focus

Bernie Sanders – The game is rigged, tax the billionaire class

Amy Klobuchar – “I have grit.” Indeed she does. She’s actually gotten things done in Congress.

Elizabeth Warren – Tax the 1%

Cory Booker – I was a mayor. I’m concerned about racial injustice.

Pete Buttigeg – I’m a mayor in the midwest. He has the magic.

Kamal Harris – California Senator, former prosecutor (asks good questions in hearings)

Kirsten Gillibrand – NY Sen. led the charge to depose Al Franken without a hearing. Was all NRA and guns in her district, became a Senator and switched.

Julian Castro – Like him, like his twin brother. But is that enough?

Tulsi Gabbard – tied to her Dad’s fundamentalist Christian org

Marrianne Williamson – Spiritualist

Richard Ojeda – Blue collar guy, not enough experience

John Delaney – MD Congressman. First to enter, haven’t heard a word since.

Those not in the race who might enter or who are considered but said NO:

Joe Biden – I think he’d get killed by the right. Portrayed as a nice guy but not that deep a thinker.

Beto O’Rourke – emotive, charismatic, not seasoned enough

Hillary Clinton – no

Sherrod Brown – no

Michael Bloomberg – no

Eric Holder – no

Jeff Merkely – no

Independents – There’s a whole list of the wacky and fringe folks.

I was surprised to see that Kanye has withdrawn.

I guess he’s throwing his support behind Donald.

I kind of like to see him dressed up in that vegetable costume with a big “TRUMP” on it.

Howard Shultz – The CEO of Starbucks. I am constantly surprised that people wait in line to pay outrageous prices for that crappy stuff that Starbucks sells and calls coffee. I’ve got to give him props for being able to pull that off, but his government experience is zero. His idea seems to be “to get the best people in a room and let them figure it out.” Wait a minute, wasn’t that the current guy’s idea? How’d that work out? In fact, how well has it worked when anyone that was a successful businessman and become president? The list is Coolidge, Hoover, Harding, Truman, Carter, Bush, and Bush.

605 Days to the 2020 election and 683 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The chart of crimes (potential)

Day 790

March 7, 2019 by Rick Kinnaird Leave a Comment

Day 790 Thursday March 7, 2019

606 Days to the 2020 election and 684 Days to Inauguration Day

Motorcycle with five people on the seat — Who’s Driving?

A scientist, a politician, and a religious person walk into a bar …

Actually, it’s a bar in a casino that is a cat house …

Where they are joined by a lawyer, a judge, and a policeman …

What do they each want? ( Besides sexual gratification, becoming rich, and getting drunk. )

I got thinking about this due to a little video I saw on Facebook. It featured Neil deGrasse Tyson. In that video he said that a scientist is in search of the truth. This got me to thinking, “What is a politician interested in?” or a religious person?

I boiled it down to this: a politician is interested in power; a religious person is interested in influence. Power and influence might be thought of as sides of the same thing, whatever that thing is.

The other three (judge, lawyer, and policeman) are all interested in society and the individual: keeping society orderly while letting the individual be as free as possible without hurting society (this is the most optimistic view I can come up with.) I guess you could argue they want order, freedom, and fairness, but all are conditional on the needs of the society in which they operate.

But let’s return to the big three: the scientist, the politician, and the religious person (priest, rabbi, mullah, etc.) The scientist wants to know the truth. In the cathouse bar cum casino, the scientist wants to know the odds of winning at the gaming tables, what’s in the drink, how’s the place constructed, etc. The politician wants to tax the place so that money can be used for other purposes that will, in some small way, help others so he can get re-elected and retain power. The priest wants to influence people to follow the religion espoused so that he has influence over their lives. This the priest may do by exhorting those around him=, which may induce fear, guilt, derision. It depends on how convincing his sales pitch is I guess.

So when you break it all down it comes down to: Truth, Power, Influence.

Only the scientist comes out looking well in my estimation. The others are all tainted by a degrees of selfishness. We could argue how much, but not the fact that they are, and is power and influence ultimately the same thing?

The judge, lawyer, and policeman are all in the business of social order. Policemen want “to keep the peace.” Judges want to be fair, and lawyers want justice for their client (provided said justice gets them off, or if a prosecutor does this justice get the person accused thrown in jail.*) In other words, legal systems are there to regulate the society in which they function.

*Okay, okay, the prosecutor it can be argued wants justice, etc. But if they never put anyone away how long would they stay in their job?

DeGrasse Tyson’s point in the video was to say that everyday we delay facing the truth is another day wasted. Once we face the truth we can look to solutions, which are politically based decisions. When we don’t face the truth, we delay the political discussion and potential solution.

In other news – We seem to be mired in discussions of not whether the president committed crimes, but how many.

There is also a disturbing reality we are being forced to face – or not (see above), and that is the huge influence of shaper of opinion in this country based on fear, anger, and deceit.

Two interesting aspects of this were in the news. One was the decision by the Democratic Party to eliminate Fox News from consideration as a potential network to hold on of Democratic Party debates. The other was an article in the New Yorker that laid out the case that Fox has become a PR machine for Donald Trump and his White House.

The New Yorker article goes on to explain that Rupert Murdoch has courted high level politicians in various countries, but he always wanted a U.S. president and now he’s bagged one. With that Fox has become the PR arm of Donald Trump. Sean Hannity is treated like part of the White House staff, not as a news person.

That’s disturbing, as is the huge influence over a large part of the country by Sinclair Broadcasting. Since rules have been diminished over how many media stations a single company can own, Sinclair has gobbled up all the small market TV and radio stations it can get its hands on. The problem for much of rural America is that is the only news outlet they have. To call it a news outlet is unfair as Sinclair regularly forces their news teams to read HQ conservative talking points as if its news or the announcer’s own opinion, which it is not. This gives new meaning to the term “talking head.”

One of the things I’m reminded of is the bevy of articles I have seen from time to time that anecdotally confirm that if you listen to the right wing stuff long enough (like three months) you become an angry person.

As I have become more interested in ancient places I have studied their religious, social, and political structures. As you study religion certain similarities become evident. The main religions of today have certain traits in common: a holy book, a visionary leader, and something else – I forget. Maybe it’s a PR man, like Saint Paul. But at the heart of religion is this essential truth – for religion to work; You Gotta Believe!

The problem with this is that what you are asked to believe can’t be verified. That’s why it’s belief! Duh. Double duh. This is essentially being on the side of the emperor who has no clothes. I keep thinking of the story of the kid in the community I raised my kids in who woke up half way through a Sunday school class to say, “Rise from the dead? Uh huh, no. Once you dead you dead.” The priest and the parental units all laughed at the boy’s silly behavior. But who was being silly?

Sir Issac Newton by introducing the world to the scientific method did more for mankind than all the politicians, religious leaders, and judges the world over have done throughout time.

We have choices that we all make. A scientist chooses to search for the truth. What do you choose?

Watched the latest episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” wherein he played a video of Jared Kushner overlaid with the voice of Gilbert Gottfried. I don’t know if Gottfried was reading the words Kushner spoke or not, but I agree with Oliver – it’s still funny.

There are clips showing Ivanka saying her dad had nothing to do with her or Jared getting security clearances. I see the penchant for lying is a family trait.

There are also clips about the Democratic Muslim Congresswoman. Not actually clips of her, but reaction to her statements on Israel etc. and the whoop and cry that she’s being anti-semitic. It’s fun to see the Republicans getting all haughty about this. After all they are the most prejudiced bunch of MFers to all sorts of people and groups. The Dems are running out saying mealy mouthed stuff, but few are mentioning the fact that this woman has said similar things about Saudi Arabia. Where’s the outrage there? Maybe there’s something to what she has said?

She has raised the issue of Palestinian rights by what she has said. My god, someone might have to think? We’ve ignored the Palestinian question since 1948, why start now? Then after 1967. I mean it’s tough, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis lend themselves to rational resolution of problems. They both fundamentally want to do the other side in. How can you ever resolve that?

Michael Cohen did some more closed door testimony. This time he brought documentary evidence. There are now eight checks he has produced that either Trump signed or Don Jr. or the CFO of the Trump org signed (I think I got that right) to pay back Michael for his paying off Stormy D. There is apparently other stuff too and we don’t know what that other stuff is, but it’s big or so we are led to believe by members of the Intelligence Committee.

606 Days to the 2020 election and 684 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Who’s driving?