A Little of This and That

Frangela was (were?) remarking how even in 1930’s Germany they didn’t know that it was 1930’s Germany with despots running for office.  Hitler ran on a more progressive platform and likewise was offering the blue collar workers all sorts of things before he outlawed labor unions.  How far will Trump take us down this slippery slope?   I’d feel better with a democratic candidate leading by more than two points.   Part of the reality with Trump is the shock value of the many numerous events with Trump where you have to sit back and let the cold reality of the totality of Trumps statements to hit you. 

It used to be a valid statement that those fallen in battle gave our lives for us to celebrate our liberties.  It was true after the revolutionary war and arguably true after the Civil War or we might not have a nation.  World Wars I and II and Korea and Viet Nam are arguably wars to preserve our liberty even if it invokes the domino theory.  However I fail to see how veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan can claim that.  These clearly appear wars of capritious choice and the only people’s liberty affected was taking the lives of a lot of foreigners.  Compared to what went on in Iraq, Viet Nam seems downright noble.

I called Mom after the snack break and I ran through a list of all the issues around here and once again resolved to get my name on the office list to see the eye doctor next time he’s here.  Mom finally had her hearing test and got the results.  She’s lost 30% of the hearing in one ear and half of her hearing in the other ear.  That’s worse than I ever imagined and I can only guess how bad Dad’s hearing loss was.  She just says sometimes she has trouble hearing the conversation at the table.  Teresa is getting worse with her memory like “every day is a new day” as Judy (the one around here) puts it.  I just needed to reassure myself that Mom’s memory isn’t getting any worse.  She says the only way to definitely know if a person has alzheimer’s is after their dead.  I mentioned some condition football players had that the only way to find out for sure is examine their brains after they’re dead.  We did not talk about Tim or Paul and I didn’t ask.  I suggested that doctors try her on a different sleeping medication every two weeks or so and find the pill that works the best and has the least side effects.

 Then it was “Breakfast with the Beatles” and the one album we never heard from besides MMT was “Yellow Submarine” and then they played “Only a Northern Song” and then I turned off the radio and went and waited for lunch early.  I went out for two cups of iced tea in the courtyard.  For lunch we had potatoes and vegetables in a fairly thin broth.  We had a crab salad and crackers.  I also had the supplement of a half double decker peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Paul and potato chips from Judy.  Then I got seconds on the crab salad, which was good.  I had Leo Le Port on and he talked about “blue tooth” which I gleaned was somehow signal running through the house current.  I didn’t know that, if it’s even true.  So it isn’t over the air signals.  He said something about domestic cell phones cut off the FM radio service that’s available throughout the rest of the world.  Leo says this Frontier company has the right to cut off all phone service in a given area, which sounds really strange. 

Rhapsody in Black featured May of 1954.  One thing I noticed was that a lot of the tracks didn’t have good sound quality.  I would remind my readers that if I didn’t personally hear the song, even if it was announced, then I don’t include it.   They played “Work with me Annie” by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters.  They played “She-boom” and also “Lovey Dovey” by the Clovers.  I grew up on the remake version of 1960.  "I Smell a Rat" was done in the Big Mama Thornton style.  They played “Gee, how I love that girl” by the Crows, which they tell us was recorded in 1952.  They played “Don’t; Stop” which is a parody of “Sixty Minute Man” with lover Dan not so lucky this time.   They played “Trying to Get to You” the original of the song Elvis later made famous.   They played “Good Night, Sweet Heart, Good Night” by the Spaniels, and “Such a Night” with Clyde Mc Phatter.  That's another song Elvis did.  Then they played “Little School Girl” by early Fats Domino, and “I Just Wan to Make Love to You” the original Muddy Waters version.   Then they jumped up a few years and played “Let’s Stick Together” by Wilbert Harrison, which is the song Canned Heat made changing the lyrics to “Let’s Work Together”.  

Sizing Up All Three Candidates

Polls have indicated that the majority of Americans agree with the agenda of Bernie Sanders in terms of lowering College education costs and furthering the cause of civil rights as well as civil liberties, and they are war weary and they don’t trust Wall Street and they prefer single payer health care.   But this fill in guy for Shawn Hannity is a right wing whacko who branded the democratic party as a whole as extremist.   He then said something I could agree with.  He said “What’s wrong with asking questions of your liberal friends to force them to think”?  Well it turns out he only had one question and that was “Do you believe in the rule of law?”   Of course we do.  Then he weakens his argument in saying “Of course democrats are selective about which laws they obey”.   He then brought up two examples.  One was the local prosecutor of District of Columbia on whether concealed weapons permits can be handed out.  It seems there is some court ruling which said “You aren’t handing out enough permits”.  He then brought up Kim Davis.  Here you have a similar case where there is a court ruling.  In this case it’s that homosexual marriages are legal.  I may not agree with that ruling but it’s the law and Kim Davis was obligated to carry out that law and not be a law unto herself.  So I’m not sure what point he was trying to make.  He attacked the Mc Donald’s minimum wage floor of fifteen dollars an hour in Seattle saying people are being fired right and left up there.  I haven’t heard about that in the news.  He then brought up the example of the lemonade stand and you wouldn’t hire someone to sell the lemonade for fifteen dollars an hour.  My response is that it depends what you sell the lemonade for.  If you want to buy a lemonade at a Mc Donalds it will cost you a heck of a lot more than 25 cents a glass.  And if you sell a glass a minute for an hour straight you’ve made fifteen dollars.  Again I’m not sure what his point is.  I hope he’s not trying to insinuate that Mc Donald’s is not making a profit on the food they sell or that somehow hiring more people to sell that food will cause them to go broke.  How much money do you suppose the average cashier at Mc Donald’s pulls in in an hour anyhow?   But I have some questions of my own if we’re going to talk about questions.  Is war all other things being equal- - a good or a bad thing?  Should wars try to be avoided if at all possible?  Should we lie to get ourselves into a war.  If there are war crimes being committed are the American people entitled to know about them.   Is the Ku Klux Klan an organization you’d like to identify with?  Should a presidential candidate identify with that group.  Does it make a presidential candidate look good to cheer for a major housing recession so he can make money?  Should a candidate’s speeches made to Wall Street be made public knowledge to “dispel any doubts”?   Should someone run for President who might soon be under indictment.  All things being equal- -shouldn’t a political party pick the strongest candidate against an opponent rather than the weakest one.  Isn’t global warming and climate change things we should be concerned about.  Shouldn’t trade deals consider the interest of the workers and the consumer and the environment?  Shouldn’t a candidate be his own man and not let party officials dictate what he’ll say in the campaign?   Does it weaken a candidate’s case while preaching “family values” to have been married three times?  Do you think it’s a good idea to have someone as President who has absolutely no prior experience?   I’m sure there are a lot more questions to be asked.  Do you think Christianity is a fact based religion or a “Faith based” religion not based on fact?  Do you feel your intelligence is being insulted by the lame brain rationalizations police gives for the deaths of suspects?   Do you favor internet neutrality?  Do you want to adopt a new way of calculating congressional districts that is patently unconstitutional even if it favors the republicans?  Do you feel that government figures on inflation and unemployment are entirely honest?   It’s funny how I am able to come up with all these questions off the top of my head and yet the guy on the radio could only think of one he wants to ask a liberal- - and he bollixed that one all up.   Hillary takes money for “down ballot races” for Senators, Governors, Congressmen, Assemblymen and the like and yet only one percent of that money reaches these targets.  Don’t you have more than a few questions about Hillary’s honesty when it comes with money in general, because I sure do.

Henry Kissinger and Dick Chaney have endorsed Hillary.  Hillary gets lots of donations from Republicans.  More Republicans are rumored to be for Hillary.  Here are a few reminders of who the “progressive” candidate of the “Democratic” Party is: Nobody Beats This Record

§  She says President Obama was wrong not to launch missile strikes on Syria in 2013.

§  She pushed hard for the overthrow of Qadaffi in 2011.

§  She supported the coup government in Honduras in 2009.

§  She has backed escalation and prolongation of war in Afghanistan.

§  She voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

§  She skillfully promoted the White House justification for the war on Iraq.

§  She does not hesitate to back the use of drones for targeted killing.

§  She has consistently backed the military initiatives of Israel.

§  She was not ashamed to laugh at the killing of Qadaffi.

§  She has not hesitated to warn that she could obliterate Iran.

§  She is not afraid to antagonize Russia.

§  She helped facilitate a military coup in Ukraine.

§  She has the financial support of the arms makers and many of their foreign customers.

§  She waived restrictions at the State Department on selling weapons to Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Qatar, all states wise enough to donate to the Clinton Foundation.

§  She supported President Bill Clinton’s wars and the power of the president to make war without Congress.

§  She has advocated for arming fighters in Syria.

§  She supported a surge in Iraq even before President Bush did.

WHAT 'LOOKING FORWARD" REALLY MEANS Since before he entered the White House, Barack Obama has proposed handling past crimes by powerful people and entities through a policy called “looking forward” — in other words, by ignoring them. While President Obama has targeted whistleblowers with retribution and more prosecutions than his predecessors, deported more immigrants, and kept the lights on in Guantanamo, anyone responsible for war or assassination or torture or lawless imprisonment or most major Wall Street scams (or sharing military secrets with one’s mistress) has been given a total pass. Why shouldn’t Harry Truman receive the same privilege?

GOOD WORK, IF YOU CAN GET IT Act as if the work of the presidency is a hardship while enjoying all the perks: The race for the White House is an expensive, grueling horse race: candidates must have at a minimum $200 or $300 million or more just to get to the starting line. The total cost for this year’s election is estimated to exceed $5 billion and could go as high as $10 billion. However, for the winner, life in the White House is an endless series of star-studded dinner parties, lavish vacations and perks the likes of which the average American will never enjoy. The grand prize winner will rake in a $400,000 annual salary (not including $100,000 a year for travel expenses, $19,000 for entertaining, $50,000 for “general” expenses and last but not least,$1,000,000 for “unanticipated” expenses), live rent-free in a deluxe, 6-storey, 55,000 square foot mansion that comes complete with its own movie theater and bowling alley, round-the-clock staff, florists, valets and butlers. Upon leaving the White House, presidents are gifted with hefty pensions, paid staff and office space, travel allowances and lifetime medical care. Ex-presidents can also expand upon their largesse by writing books and giving speeches (Bill Clinton was given a $15 million advance for his memoirand routinely makes upwards of $100,000 per speech).

 I turned on the Stephanie Miller show but got bored really fast.  I’m burnt out on politics but even more than that I’m sick of the chronic pro Hillary stance of everyone on the Stephanie show.  It’s not that they are actually saying what a positive agenda Hillary has or how wonder America will be with her. Despite the amount of Bernie bashing they do on that show it’s not as if they are pointing out where Hillary is a better candidate than Bernie, because they can’t do that.  In any head to head comparison between Bernie and Hillary, Bernie wins hands down.  In terms of cigarettes I’ve gotten a whole one from Phyllis Green and one from Ron.  We had corn flakes for breakfast followed by two pancakes and bacon.  Paul gave me another glass of orange juice and both of his pancakes.  The black coffee was only about a half a cup and there were certainly no extras these days.  I had Stephanie on a bit after breakfast but quickly turned it on “Ring of Fire” from May 21^st.   I watched twenty minutes before breakfast and the remaining ten after breakfast.  Then I watched the entire May twentieth show after breakfast.  Bill’s physical therapist was here and he’s been using some vibrator gadget on Bill.  I didn’t ask Bill whether today’s session helped him.  One thing that gets a little old are the endless repeats we get both from Hartman and Stephanie Miller.

Mark Semone was on instead of Hannity.  The news of the day is that there was an official State Department report saying Hillary is guilty in the E mail case.  So now it’s rumored that they’re going to pick Joe Biden for President when Hillary is indicted.  They have already decided to get rid of Debby Wasserman Shultz- - as part of a sacrificial lamb elimination.  I think this is an excellant idea and long overdue.  She's held that office for five years since 2011 and is responsible for the disasterous showing at the ballot box in November of 2014.  The truth is that if there is to be a progressive "revolution" it has not yet started.  This November will be a test as to whether it has.  At three I tuned in Norman Goldman.  Again I did more slumbering.  We had a chicken drumstick for dinner but there was no curry sauce or seasonings as advertized.  We had a green salad with Italian dressing and a half baked potato.  We had yogurt for dessert.

This is Wednesday May 25, 2016.  When I got up this morning I was thinking how dominated my writings have become with politics.  This wasn’t true in the spring of 1996 for instance.  I was all wrapped up in those suicide scenarios where each time I’d die or meet my demise I’d “come to” in a different place.  Then in 2000 my writings were dominated by the therapy sessions with Eileen at the mental health center.  In 2004 my writings were very dull in the spring and then in July we saw a revival of all the fantasy aspects of my writings and not politics.  That brings us to 2008.  I’ve looked at 2008 and many of the references to Obama are very brief.  But clearly the writings of the time show a clear distrust of Obama and that Hillary was being short changed by the party.  Even at that date I wasn’t ceased by politics to the extent I am now.  Only in 2012 have I been as obsessed with politics as I am now.  Stephanie had Thom Hartman on her show yesterday.  This morning I smoked the cigarette I saved from last night when Bill gave me a cigarette as I was watching “The Flash”.  I was too sleepy to go out for a smoke.  I got my medication from Tom.  I slept well but still woke tired.  They’re playing an old Donald Trump video of the “real estate bubble” thing in 2008 where Donald Trump doesn’t believe a Real Estate crash would happen but if it did he’d be good for someone like him who would swoop in and buy low.  The trouble is that remark won’t play too well on main street

Officer in Freddy Gray Case Acquitted

There is bad news on the Freddy Gray front.  This is the Black guy was beaten up and severely injured by Baltimore police and ‘helped’ into the van and given a “rough ride” and died from the totality of the treatment.  It’s clearly a case of six cops murdering a Black guy.  The Court ruling today let one of the officers off saying he is not guilty.  This isn’t anything new, unfortunately.   In another case that the High Court just ruled on today- - a Black guy convicted of murder was let go because he was convicted by an all White jury.  This is because the court went through all twenty preemptary challenges weeding out all of the Black prospective jurors.  There is proof this racism was deliberate because there were notes indicating which jurors were Black and had to be gotten rid of.  And there were even priorities as to Which black jurors were worse than others as far as getting an acquittal should it come down to that.   This was a seven to one ruling of the High Court and the lone dissenter was our old friend Clarence Thomas, who is the ultimate Oreo as well as hypocrite.  And Donald Trump wants to have nine black robed Justices all just like Clarence Thomas.  Judge Thergred Marshall thirty years ago expressed a problem with these preemptary challenges, and I think lawyers have up to twenty of these challenges they can use to have any juror they want dismissed without cause.  I’m not sure how I feel about such cases in general where race was not a specific factor as it was in this case.  But the theory is that there are more whites in any given locality than there are blacks so that it’s easier to use your preemptary challenges on Black jurors to exhaust the supply of them- - than it is for whites.  It would be interesting to have Hillary Clinton weigh in on both these cases. On the Thom Hartman show there was talk about how Blackwater has gotten into the law enforcement officer training business to give it that military zing.  They changed their name several times and ended up as being the Accademy corporation- - pretty tricky, huh?  So you'll have Accademy ruling the accademy. 

Bill Clinton was the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland if you start counting back the administrations.  If Hillary is to brag about anything it’s perhaps that she’s the most liberal administration since Jimmy Carter who was elected forty years ago.  My how time flies.  Norman Goldman points out that the moneyed interests of the Democratic Party, the bosses who run the thing- - won’t care if Donald Trump is elected.  That’s just our point.  The Democratic Party doesn’t care because they’ll go on anyhow.  Donald Trump has been working hard to consolidate his victory in the Republican Party by being nice to the people he defeated.  You don’t find the same kind of treatment with Hillary.  In terms of the notion that “The Democratic Party is our only hope” which Goldman talks about, I have to ask “In who’s eyes?”  I’m sure the Catholic Church regarded its institution as the only hope for Salvation in Martin Luther’s time.  And the Founding Fathers didn’t accept the British Empire’s definition of democratic government but made their own definitions written in the Declaration of Independence.  If there are twenty percent of the voters out there who aren’t happy with either Trump or Clinton and may not vote wouldn’t it be better to give someone they can vote for, such as Bernie Sanders.  Sanders clobbers Clinton in the head to head contests with Trump, so why not go for a winner?  I believe if things continue going the way they are this superiority in the polling in head to head contests against Donald Trump will become obvious, even to the democratic delegates.  

There are doing a lot of Bernie bashing on the Stephanie Miller show today and one pro Bernie caller was tagged as a right wing troll.  I think the whole show is getting out of hand.  They criticized Bernie Sanders for saying on “This Week” that Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils.  Hillary has a 54% unfavorable rating and Trump has a 58% unfavorable rating so I think the phrase “the lesser of two evils” is a correct one. As to Norman Goldman's observations this afternoon he says that Bernie Sanders is trying to TURN OFF voters by calling the institution vile and corrupt and not worthy of them.  Goldman has it completely wrong.  It's Bernie who is trying to bring people INTO the system!  Nobody is talking about "doctrinal purity".  Goldman must be hanging around the Pope too long!  But there is a difference between black and white.  In 2008 you had two "conservadems" but one of them was lying about it and the other was being honest.  Given the choice between a liar and a truth teller, I'll take the truth teller.  Rush Limbaugh on his show today talked about the author of the book and mow Movie called "Clinton Cash".  Rush describes the content of this book as "non political".  Maybe I'll read it.  I do have the observation comparing Hillary and Obama in February of 2008 where I would like to side with Hillary.  This involves the comparing of their health care plans and I now say that Obama was lying through his teeth in attacking Hillary’s health care plan because this is the one Obama adopted and got passed, so all of his attacks of her are blowing smoke.  He sure used words like “hope and change” a lot.  In so many head to head comparrisons of that campaign season Hillary got the best of Obama.  She was the one who was sharp and focused and Obama had his head in the clouds.  

I turned on KNX radio and listened to President Obama discuss this new Overtime pay bill.  They about doubled the wage threshold for being guaranteed overtime pay by the federal government from $23,000 to 47,000 and then they are going to index the rate to the rate of inflation from now on, which the Republicans won’t like one bit.  (later on)  President Obama last week issued another of those executive orders.  This one involved the allowing of people earning under $47,000 a year to get time and a half for more than forty hours.  This is to make up for a loss in wages over the years due to inflation.  There were howels of protest both by Pat Buchannon and also that British guy about how this arbitrary move would wreck the economy and there would be loss of jobs.  The Black guy responded that with a rise in wages so overdue that this loss would not be noticed, if it occurred at all.   This is one of those issues I wish Hillary Clinton would weigh in on, in case there are any doubts on how she stands.  I cam be pretty sure that Paul and Judy would give a thumbs down to this.  Even though the law as first passed decades ago has been way muted by inflation, they don't care- - any more than the doctor's mal practice limitation bill of $250,000 passed in 1978.  We don't live in 1978 dollars these days.  Since I've been on SSI we've had inflation over the past twenty years so a two thousand dollar limitation on cash reserves (which I haven't always stuck to) is more stringent now than whenever this particular law was originally passed.  There are certain laws where it only makes sense to index the limitation rates to the rate of inflation.  

Last night the Billboard Awards were held live at five o clock.  I only felt like watching scantily clad women for only so long.  I switched to KNBC news, which went on till seven o clock.  There were only two people in line ahead of me for medication.  I watched Sixty Minutes.  The first segment was a favorite of Morley Safer with that Italian wine making family.  They are now letting the three daughters into the business.  The next segment was on insider trading.  The final segment for that hour was on Valerie Jered, who is wedded to the hip with Barock Obama.  Some people find this close connection troubling.  She’s way closer than any other White House aid he’s had.  Some find this close connection troubling. Channel seven repeated the whole Billboard Awards thing at eight, seemingly.  Then I watched the Simpson’s episode.  Then they had a thing on art fraud- - and a whole gallery did only business dealing in counterfeit art.  Then there was a thing on those fish in the Gulf of California which the Mexican government is trying to save.  

 I had a disturbing dream last night.  There was some elaborate plot for my family to disown me and arrange for me to die in a mysterious manner and then all traces of my life would be eliminated.  I was taken and drowned in the ocean.  But then I thought I had survived death.  I walked around some hospital and the nurses there were talking about me and they described me as a “Remulan”  (as opposed to Romulan)  But they could not see me but some kids who looked like zombies or something- -they recognized me.  Prior to this I had seem some soap opera plot where there was elaborate talk about a family free and kept secrets and how the same thing was destined to happen to one of the characters on the show.  Actually I had obtained evidence Mom and Dad were planning on having me eliminated but I dared not confront them with it because I didn’t want to be accused of being paranoid.  But when the evidence mounted up they were planning it they could no longer deny it.  In one scene I had taken a couple of valiums and had other valiums with me and was wandering through the streets as it was getting dark.  I went to the family church where they had just installed a new younger pastor I barely knew and I wanted to council with him.  But he was offended by the fact I was wearing shorts (even though it was cooling off) and there was a group of youths fresh from a baseball outing or something and they were wearing shorts and the church officials were offended at their dress.  A church service was starting and you had to wear suits.