Saturday June 20, 2020
134 Days until the election on November 3rd
214 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
A friend of mine won’t even write his name he refers to him as Satan.
My friend is a shortwave enthusiast and has contact friends around the world.
Robert Gates in his book and on interviews has said that we need to strengthen our soft power and stop using military power as the first and only solution. Gates recommends strengthening such things as Voice of America (VOA) and associated U.S. Government run networks that broadcast news and our way of life around the world. It is how we stand up to authoritarian governments and autocratic bullies. It is how we give people news and the truth about what is happening both in America and in their own countries.
Until now.
Donal Trump at the behest of Steve Bannon no doubt (because Trump ain’t that bright) has replaced the head of all those networks with a right wing disciple of Bannon’s who up until this point in time has made wacky right wing movies. Seems the right wing is very concerned about boys going into girls bathrooms and whether or not girls in sports are being marginalized by transgender athletes. Given that their boy in the White House has pulled us out of every major treaty and deal he could, started trade wars that yielded nothing but ruined markets here at home and abroad, seen the largest decline in the economy since the Great Depression, the greatest joblessness rate since Black Friday, the biggest world pandemic ever seen, and huge rallies in our streets and streets around the world I can see why they are looking at the transgender issue as paramount to being resolved right now.
(I almost wonder if Gates’ book prompted Trump to realize he could kick down another American bulkwark then I realized – no, it’s Bannon.)
While they are focused on bathrooms and girls’ athletics Mr. Trump via his newly minted head of VOA and associated networks has fired everybody at the top of those organizations. All the boards of directors, all the people who actually run the place and deliver the content – all gone. Gee, I wonder who he’s going to replace them with? I’m guessing people worried about transgender people using the bathroom and oh yes let’s not forget the Clintons and George Soros.
So is that the worst thing Satan did this week? Or was it the firing of the head of the Federal Prosecutor’s office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY)?
Hard to say isn’t it?
Why fire the guy he appointed and why fire him now?
Ah, grasshopper, five months to go til the election and he can put an acting in there for six months. The Southern District keeps looking into Trump’s dealings in New York. Just because he setup a scam university for which he had to return money and he and his sons are barred from running a non-profit in New York, and because he and his dad racially profiled and denied minority people housing, and just because he used illegal scab labor to build his Trump Tower and when they asked to be paid he threatened to deport them, just because his sister resigned as a judge so she wouldn’t have to face an inquiry about how the Trump family had set up many ways to hide and avoid taxes – some illegally, just because he was laundering money for Russians via Deutsche Bank and the son of a Supreme Court Justice signed many of the loan documents thus causing that judge to retire, just because he created four businesses that went bankrupt, just because he let people sign over title to their houses so they could keep gambling at his casino in New Jersey and then he could seize their houses The SDNY is investigating him and he thinks it very unfair and is out to do whatever he can to stop them. At least, until he can slide by in the next election.
Here’s the VOA clip:
On a positive note: I saw an article in The Economist that talked about how science has been fundamentally changed by this pandemic and how that is of benefit to the world and science. The lady’s point being that the rush to try and stop this virus has led to publishing and the forming of alliances across corporate and international lines. Things that in earlier times (like March) would have taken years to form if ever. One thing she wrote that was really good was quoting someone else who said that in science if you don’t publish it doesn’t exist. The point of science is to learn how the world works. It is the ultimate search for truth. If you learn something and don’t tell others then we can’t benefit.
134 Days until the election on November 3rd
214 Days until the Inauguration on January 20, 2021
PS In the Cave Balankanché, near Chichèn Itzá
Don’t forget Stephen Miller.