Regulating the English Language

by roscoe00 | Jun 2, 2018 | Current Events

Roseanne Barr was canned this week for tweeting something bad (racist). People never learn, don’t twitter in your shorts while downing some brewskies(or pills).  In fact, don’t use Twitter, you are just propping up an epic fail company that doesn’t deserve a second life. By using Twitter you are putting your career, and maybe your whole life, in jeopardy. Just say no.

Samantha Bee wasn’t canned for saying something bad although her slurs were arguably much worse. Fortunately she does not live in North Korea or her whole family for generations would end up in labor camps for dissing the supreme leader and his daughter. Whereas VJ wouldn’t get the time of day. So there is a double standard and the first one to shout “racism” wins. Well, no, the first one on the left to do it wins. Anything else goes, C word, no problem. Bash women, fine, filthy remarks about the President and his daughter, fair game.

But don’t utter the phrase “Planet of the Apes” which is now the equivalent of the N word. Who knew? Curiously there are several movies out by the same name and I am pretty sure people are still making money by selling or renting them. So why all the uproar? I admit I thought “Muslim Brotherhood” was the offending phrase but I stand corrected. POA is taboo, but I haven’t a clue why. I googled it and the cerebral critics think there might be “metaphors” drawn between blacks and apes. I suppose there could a metaphor between anybody and anything. Darth Vader should be a banned phrase, for having one James Earl Jones as the voice and having dark clothes.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which is a fact, is much worse than Planet of the Apes which is fiction. I will, however concede that POA, has a much sillier ring to it and could be used as an insult in a variety of childish ways. However, I can insist with certainty that both of those phrases by themselves have nothing to do with racism. MB is a group and POA is a movie. Everyone I think would agree. It is only when you add the complexities of language and culture to the mix do you infringe on race. But then books have been using racist language and treading on racist issues for centuries without being banned, except in Fahrenheit 451. God help us if we lose this right to free speech.

Have you every heard a rap song call anyone an ape? Or a Muslim? Nope, only the N word is bad enough for rappers, that says it all. Now, what about MF’er or C word? Are those racist? Well if you are a woman you may well think so. VJ has to endure Planet of the Apes, Ivanka has to endure feckless C word. Is one worse than the other? Well it depends on how you look at it. If you view it as a emotionally charged race issue, calling a black person an ape may well be the moral equivalent of calling then an N word – although I have been around a long time and I haven’t seen it used as such. However, look at it a little more objectively. An ape may well be a bad word in certain contexts, but only after assigning the worst possible meanings and connotations.

But Planet of the Apes? The movie is now the bad word? I am sorry but that is a huge overreach. That is allowing too much of the English language and pop culture to be claimed as racist. That provides too many opportunities for mediocre wordsmiths and drunken twitterers to make mistakes.The activists and rappers can  have the N word and in certain situations they can even have “ape”. and they can even disgrace themselves by calling each other their own banned words with impunity, But they can’t have “Planet of the Apes”, just as they can’t have Star Wars. Not unless they want to pull the movies from the shelves. By same token women, being a protected class as well, are entitled to their own N word and if there ever was one it would be the C word. Feckless C word is even worse.  

The process by which you take a phrase meaning one thing and apply to it a whole slew of other sinister meanings is standard in this culture and is now used to destroy careers. Unfortunately it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to compartmentalize racist, or perhaps offensive, remarks, because there are too many to control. They have been extrapolated to include increasing elements of the culture, contexts and language. There is little that can be freely said anymore without fear of ridicule and consequences.  

Regulating the English language isn’t a new phenomenon. Similar stigmas are found all throughout American culture. There is plenty to get upset about if you are a somebody who thinks you, or your ancestors, have been unfairly persecuted or discriminated against. The N word used to be used way back in my generation all the time, in jokes too. But because it was thought to be derogatory it became frowned upon, then a banned substance, now it is used all the time, but only by one subculture of the population that evidently has the moral authority to use it. God forbid somebody uses it in Twitter.   

However this process has run amok. Remember the word Sambo? Sambo’s the food chain went out of business because Sambo the name became a bad word. Obviously it wasn’t always a bad word as Sambo’s was very popular just like Denny’s is now, Sambo doesn’t strike me as a bad word. In fact I will bare my soul now and make apologies to the black person I called Sambo some decades ago while playing table soccer with him in college.He got upset and I kind of didn’t know why. Call me naive but to this day nobody quite knows why Sambo is a racist term. :Little Black Sambo was a children’s book written by a mother about 100 years ago. It is a benign story about Tigers turning into butter. It had nothing derogatory to say about race or about Sambo. The book did, however, have different editions with illustrations and portrayals of the little boy Sambo, Not all illustrations were flattering enough for civil rights activists and the rest is history. 

Other cultural racial taboos stem from the same progression of discontent. Blackface, Amos and Andy, Stepin Fetchit and so many other pawns in the racism game serving to curtail and control the otherwise free speech and culture we have come to expect and enjoy.  

Mueller vs Starr – Killing all the Lawyers

by roscoe00 | May 26, 2018 | Current Events

There are fascinating similarities between the Mueller investigation of Russian Collusion, and the Starr investigation of President Clinton in the nineties. Clearly history repeats itself when it comes to special counsels. In this case I can well understand why the Democratic Party would want the same outcome as before. Clinton was impeached, and if the impeachment of Trump were the outcome of the Mueller investigation, then that would be welcome payback for the left.

At the time I was very anti-Clinton and relished in the antics of Travelgate, Whitewater and all of Bill’s flames and flame-outs. Clinton was an undisputed political heavyweight with good looks, charm and communication mastery. This is why I was always mystified by his extracurricular activities or, more specifically, why he dallied with the women he dallied with.. News organizations are still dredging up his sordid past and accusations by a stream of harassed women, lawsuits and rape allegations. He may have been every bit as sexually sick as Harvey Weinstein but able to dodge out of trouble in a era more forgiving than the current #metoo environment. 

Another similarity is that both investigations started out rather focused and proceeded to become open ended. That is, you have orders to investigate Russian collusion …. plus anything you find along the way. This is an invitation to take forever at the expense of the American taxpayer. When it comes to politics, however, nobody is particularly concerned about the American taxpayer. Once you start to prosecute people for lying, such as Flynn, or nobodies such as Papadapolous, then you have to ask where they are going with this. Yet the same could be said of the Starr investigation. Why would anyone try to hang Bill Clinton for lying about sex? This man lied to the American people and it was as clear as the driven snow. What was appalling about a presidential liar back then is now commonplace. 

What nobody knew at the time was that Clinton lies and deception transcended the Starr investigation and survive to this day. While Whitewater and Travelgate are long gone, emails and Clinton foundations are still the subject of scrutiny. Clinton was being sued by women even back that far while the liberal media is currently dumping much Stormy Daniels slime all over Trump. Payback is a bitch. The  bottom line is conservatives hated Clinton almost as much then as liberals hate Trump now. I cheered when Clinton was impeached. But in retrospect, it was an idiotic idea.It may have exposed Clinton’s flaws as a human but it did nothing for the country. If Clinton really was as bad as Weinstein, they should have thrown the book at him. But don’t bother trying to prosecute him as a liar, you would just have to do that with everyone.  

What is happening now with the Mueller investigation is interesting.  He is under fire, not only from the right, but from the President himself. Big time. Starr was under fire but not from Clinton, rather from his minions. But this President is loud and is armed with litigators in the conservative media, something that didn’t happen last century because the media didn’t litigate back then. As with Starr, Mueller can’t defend himself, as he has to keep his investigator’s mouth shut. So as the right does their own investigation, pulling out a damning trail of bad behavior by the FBI, Mueller starts to look out of control and headed for his own Waterloo. And yes, the Clintons are still causing problems, no wonder the Democrats want to get rid of them. 

The conservative litigants are very vocal about this: If you are going to accuse the Trump campaign of collusion with the Russians, you need to look no further than the Clinton campaign. But only if you are trying to be fair. Liberal litigants don’t do fair, they want the Hillary investigation gone and buried, which Jim Comey mostly managed to accomplish but not without the world coming apart. In this day and age there are no unclean hands, not the DOJ, not the FBI, not 17 intelligence agencies and not Mueller. Right now the campaigns are smelling pretty good and bureaucrats not so much. Well this is the swamp to drain.

Now, when I said Mueller was headed to his own Waterloo I was kidding. Office of special counsel is sacred and his investigation will not be impeded, no way. I do not object to special counsels if they serve a purpose. But politics were injected into both the Clinton and Trump investigations in a way that is very harmful to the function of the government. If you have to dream up petty charges to destroy a decorated general and a 27 year old kid, then it isn’t an investigation, it is indeed a, a, witch hunt, 

Is There a Deep State? And Why it Matters.

by roscoe00 | Apr 1, 2018 | Current Events

For those that think there isn’t a deep state, I understand. It sounds preposterous, right out of a Tom Clancy novel. The term sounds ominous, kind of like the dark web, as if hit men will come and knock on your door. But all it really means is that there are employees within the government who have their own opinions and agendas independent of the government in which they serve. This by itself is not unusual. However the deep state exists when they use their government positions to carry out those agendas in opposition to the national interests an/or in an illegal manner. They can take it a step further when they act in concert with each other to plan and execute outcomes that further those agendas. This process may or may not be called a conspiracy which may or may not be illegal. The deep state can exist that cover either or both political parties. They can be either benign or destructive.

US history is full of well known political conspiracies but deep states are more like long term bureaucratic machines with political purpose. Indeed the term suggests they are far more insidious and covert than anyone could believe. Famed investigative journalist Jack Anderson once addressed this phenomenon even back in the 80s. During a speech at Rutgers he poured on the details of the US bureaucracy, calling it “far worse than you could ever imagine”.  He proceeded to describe the an immovable object, which we now call the swamp, which is self perpetuating, self protecting and able to fend off would be attackers that try to reduce its size and power. You can’t identify it, it is too widespread. You can try to cut off the money, but they will find ways to strangle you. It is like a parasite than cannot be extracted without ruining the host.    

But to deny its existence because it sounds creepy is kind of ignoring the signs.What are the signs? There are many. For example a torrential flow of leaks to the media from unnamed sources from the intelligence community – all aimed at disposing of a President whose campaign promise was to drain the swamp. Well it appears the swamp called and wants Hillary back. 

I suppose this should be expected since the intelligence community includes thousand of government and private entities and a third of 1% of the US population holds top secret clearances. Apparently, despite the credentials, there just ain’t that much that is top secret. Just ask the New York Times or the Washington Post. Moreover, the deep state includes thousands of Obama holdovers and the Trump administration has been slow to replace them.

Why should holdovers matter, after all they are good red-blooded Americans, aren’t they? Well, the deep state matters because it there were ever a coup, it would be the swamp that is able to pull it off. These days overthrowing the government (aka impeachment) is not a military affair it is a congressional one. The congress, as we all know, is impotent at doing everything and it requires assistance to impeach a sitting President. For one thing the opposition party needs to control it which, in Trump’s case, hasn’t happened yet. 

But that hasn’t stopped the deep state from trying – and their methods aren’t nearly as obvious. In fact they really try to appear random. The mere initiation of a bizarre special counsel investigation is one example of the deep state in operation. Rod Rosenstein, with support from a particularly rabid anti-Trump media and a recused Jeff Sessions could easily muster enough popular support to start one. But it is anyone’s guess what the purpose really was. The mandate was so open ended that Mueller could indict Trump’s entire ancestral line posthumously. Well it could have been obstruction of justice with the Comey. But that could not stand on its own, it is way too lame. It could have been to get Flynn, but oh, they already had Flynn with illegal wiretaps and unmasking of historical proportions. Wiretaps, unmasking? There’s that deep state again.

Let’s turn to Russian collusion by the Trump Campaign. Now, we aren’t sure whether there is even a no-no here let alone a crime. What has become clear along the way is that nearly everyone is colluding with Russia. But not necessarily to influence an election. Despite having its well covered roots in the Obama administration, the idea of following that path probably started with Manafort who clearly was making money from his activities and didn’t appear to even hide it.  And yes Carter Page was being followed around for rather dubious reasons relating back to the “dossier” (geez that deep state again).

It is pretty clear the deep state was in action before Trump was elected and if you put any stock in the recently released FBI texts you realize that there was clearly an undercurrent of bureaucrats who were so utterly paranoid they wanted to thwart the Trump presidency and were willing to take action to do it. So here you have motive, opportunity, intent. Fast forward through many investigations and you find that Hillary Clinton’s name keeps popping up: for selling US uranium stockpiles to the Russians(collusion much?), for creating the “dossier”, for self dealing with the Clinton Foundation, for email crimes,

So the Russian collusion angle seems to be going in the wrong direction, mainly because Trump won. But Hillary has just as many or more footprints in Russia. Now we have to remember the “influence the election” part because this is the aspect of the special counsel’s job that seems to make the most sense, if only he would stick to it. The whole “influence the election” angle departs from reality if you start grabbing Manafort dollars and indict people for being liars. It is so easy to take a “wait and see” attitude because what else can you do? You are going to wait years for the end result if there even is one. The investigation will may drag into oblivion so that it becomes irrelevant. Or there may be indictments along the way and even Trump may get into trouble. But no more trouble than he’s in right now. All of the media and a third of the country wants to impeach him this minute for offenses against the sensibilities.

The bottom line is it was never really clear why we needed a special counsel. The mandate was too broad and the evidence of impropriety too scant. The conspiracy theory was that the real motive for the investigation had more to do with degrading the presidential win and trying to handcuff his agenda. But a more centrist theory would be that we have never had a president who is anything like this one and he sure acts like a con man, so he must be doing something wrong. He lies, his business career is rough and tumble and he may well have violated the rules, ergo let’s investigate. So be it, but let’s have some idea of what we are investigating.  

I don’t think I am taking a leap here by stating that Russians influencing the election is a systemic problem that probably touches on all aspects of our political system and has for decades every since Putin grabbed power. Even Obama finally realized this along about 2/3 through his presidency. I think we now got the idea.  Ruskies can advertise anywhere, anytime and for any candidate they want. They can do lots of things that are perfectly legal to influence our election. Legal or illegal, the Russians are everywhere in our media, and, other than pulling the voting levers, there is every reason to believe they will have an effect. So what? You can Clinton spending billions and Trump on every TV channel, how bad can it be? If Mueller wants to tackle this deal, he won’t get to the end of it by focusing on Trump. Even if Trump called up his BFF Putin and had him run ads everywhere and then had him turn Assange loose, it is the tip of the iceberg and Mueller knows it.

Back to the deep state. It’s there, it isn’t going away and it never will. But it does leave clues as to its intentions and biases. It does break the law, though it is there to uphold it. It does have political opinions. It isn’t perfect, because it is made up of average humans like you and me. Every time you hear about an unnamed source, a leak, a person with knowledge, a source close to matter, you are hearing about the deep state. Every time you hear that Congress can’t get information from the DOJ or FBI, it’s the deep state. Many of these folks you hear about every day. McCabe, Comey, Rosenstein. Watch their testimony in congress. Watch Mueller being asked questions. You would think he joined the FBI yesterday. These people are not cooperating with the American people, they are arrogant, defiant and smug.

Are they traitors? It depends on who is doing the accusing. It used to be we were all Americans. Now we are on one side or the other. This may be what the Trump presidency has wrought — a contentious national battle. Some would call it a civil war. It is not unlike the McCarthy era when fingers were pointed everywhere and careers and lives were destroyed. At the very least it exposes the worst political biases in the media and in ourselves. My god, our families and friendships can’t even survive our differences in this environment. But we are much better off for this purge. It is like having an enormous mirror, looking into it close up and not liking what you see. I now know what we are really facing, it will take another whole post to deal with it but we should take a step back and realize that there may be reasons why autocracies often survive.

Protectionism, Nationalism and The Globe

by roscoe00 | Mar 24, 2018 | Current Events

Let’s get one thing straight. All other countries hate the US – to varying degrees but yes we are hated. Why? Because it is human nature. For too damn long we have done it better, outproduced, accumulated wealth and simply lived better as a society than everyone in the world. We have left all totalitarian countries in the dust and pretty much most socialist countries as well. We are greedy capitalists in a democratic society. Not everyone is wealthy, but everyone has the opportunity to get wealthy. Not everyone lives well but anyone can live well. So, what is exactly the point of an appeasement policy towards any country? Why would we send money to Iran and assume they will be our friend? Why would we go and try to rescue and reform Iraq at enormous expense?

The scattered US foreign policy over the past decades has made us weak in an era when dictators have found a way to survive and become stronger. Is this the fast lane to inevitable military confrontation? When China and Russia grab land and ocean that wasn’t theirs does that force our hand to fight back? Well, I think yes. The US needs to protect its interests abroad just like everyone else – because those interests are constantly under fire from all directions. We absorb constant figurative and literal assaults militarily, economically and ideologically. Yet protectionism and nationalism seem to be dirty words if you listen to the media, Of course listening to the media is now vastly overrated and the voters spoke in 2016 to favor nationalism and protectionism, whatever that might mean. 

Among other things it means controlling immigration, controlling our budget, creating favorable trade and generally enhancing the lives of American citizens rather than trying to enhance the rest of the world, an impossible feat anyway.  It doesn’t mean massive giveaways to terrorist countries, fighting foreign wars to protect citizens of other countries or weakening the US in the name of saving the world.

We have done a fantastic job of giving away the resources of our nation since the 70s. We send money all over the world without a thought of repayment. We have allowed foreign countries to enter our country and own our land and businesses without oversight. We spend massive amounts of money to fight wars in other countries. So when Trump says “let’s take the oil from Iraq” he means it. If Putin had taken Iraq, do we really think he would have left the oil in the ground?

We have sold or given away our natural resources abroad including our uranium. We have allowed other countries to run up huge trade surpluses against our deficits, dumping countless goods into our country. We have allowed those countries to protect their own businesses from our exports. So three cheers for tariffs.

The point is when we finally have someone in office who doesn’t want to give away the store, the media throws fits. Get real folks, you are being run over by third world countries and you want hire back Obama so he apologize for not giving them more stuff.At some point we have to stop worrying about diversity and identity politics and start winning our country back from the rest of the world.

The Facebook Experiment

by roscoe00 | Feb 18, 2018 | Current Events

Facebook used to be a nice idea until it got caught up in a big problem: politics. Well ok, politics is just part of their bigger problem which is life on the internet. Now that news travels faster than ever, it pollutes Facebook faster than pictures of grandma or your nephew’s graduation. Thus the current political climate, which is ugly as sin, has dragged down Facebook with it.

I don’t even need to read propaganda from Russia or ads from Blacktavist, I could not care less if 13 bozos from Russia were indicted, It pales in comparison to all of the propaganda generated here in the US. Russia is utterly insignificant – which doesn’t mean Putin isn’t chortling at our folly. No, I get it all faster and far more intense from my erstwhile FB friends. Yes, I used to have friends on Facebook and then they started to get ugly. Even before Trump was elected and while Hillary was shutting down the Bernie campaign, the political establishment in both parties fought to the death on politics, to the point where Trump supporters are afraid for their well being and are essentially in hiding.

This caused massive consternation at FB prime, but it didn’t end there. Not only did all the FB friends dis each other on politics – which continues to cause mass de-friending, but the hate process evolved. It permeated college campuses, caused organized protests and is even blamed for shootings and terrorism. Thank you Facebook. It used to be a sanctuary where I could see how my old friends were doing, look at family pictures, get advice and opinions on movies, restaurants concerts, get local news etc and generally feel good. Now it is a place I go only occasionally and with much trepidation for fear that even people close to me will turn to the dark side. 

Is this peculiar to Facebook? Of course not it’s the internet and Facebook is the biggest player in the feelgood space. And according to millennials, Facebook is for old people anyway and not even in the mainstream anymore. Geez where does that leave email? If email has gone the way of the rotary phone then I must have missed a lot of Russian political spam and I think that’s because they didn’t bother to send any. Why? It probably didn’t make them any money.

In fact the biggest missing ingredient from this Russian scandal is money. The 13 indictees sure spent a lot of money on ads but I doubt they got much back. At least Hillary knows how to do it. Spend other peoples’ money on campaigns and make money on speaking and illicit foundation activity, I doubt she pickpocketed the Russians but they did contribute to the effort. 

The Thirteen Indictments – Takeaways

by roscoe00 | Feb 17, 2018 | Current Events

A fascinating twist in the world of Russian collusion has just happened from the oddest of sources, the Mueller investigation. After a year of bizarre back and forth with the likes of CNN and the NYTimes in one corner painting Trump as the antichrist and conservative media returning fire at Hillary, Obama and other targets on the left, the special counsel surprises everyone. What did Mueller and Company do? They indicted 13 alleged Russian internet trolls that used social media to influence American elections and politics. In fact Rod Rosentstein went into pretty deep detail of exactly what they did and how they did it.  Of course these folks are living in Russia so we can’t get at them but at least we have established and verified the nature of the problem and can proceed from there. 

So now the left can scream “See Mr. Trump?? There was Russian interference!!” While Mr. Trump can scream “See CNN?? we didn’t do it”. Which goes to show you how utterly silly this whole affair is. Nobody wins this game except perhaps Mueller, who takes himself out of the crosshairs at least for a while as he throws a bone to both sides without fingering any Americans. Actually that’s a brilliant strategy to keep himself in the game while not incurring an overabundance of wrath from either side. At the same time he might well be serving American democracy, a novel idea at that, by identifying the real culprit and establishing the Russians as the common enemy.

This shouldn’t have come as a surprise – after all, Russian collusion should involve Russia, right?  But lately this concept has been obfuscated by partisan sniping, big time, with CNN drooling for Mueller to indict the next liar. And so it is now written in stone for the world to see – its about the Russians, stupid. So we can put aside the side issues of Flynn and Manafort who really should be small potatoes in this thing anyway, especially since all of the real crimes are in the Hillary camp. 

But the real takeaway from the ordeal was the revelation that the Facebook Ruskies orchestrated protests on all sides just to be a nuisance. They hardly even knew who they were rooting for. They were apparently pitching for Bernie, and yet, as Laura Ingrham quips “they were no match for the DNC”, So the Mueller contribution is to point out to the American people that we have been flailing away at each other while the trolls sit back and laugh. But it got worse that that. They had us at each others throats.

The intense reach of social media enabled the trolls to incite protests and rile up the public. Conservative media blamed this on George Soros and his many attack foundations and pacs. But it actually doesn’t matter who drummed up all the protests it matters that the American people understand what is happening. To the extent that the Russians have had any impact at all, no not in the election but in the undermining of our democracy, we should realize we are being played. Maybe Obama should have stopped this nonsense in 2014, but now it came through loud and clear from the special counsel. The Russians are messing with our heads, and, judging from all the hate mongering from the media, it is working. 

So put aside your left or right wing agendas and your distaste for whoever is in the White House and remember you are an American. As soon as we stopped debating the issues and started weaponizing them, we stopped getting anything done and played right into their hands. And the trolls will keep on doing it. So when you see some self serving propaganda on Facebook from a fringe outfit you never heard of make the assumption that it is un-American and isn’t worth the time to read it. In fact it was probably published by a collection of back room internet losers from the other side of the world who aren’t even sure what their message is.      

The Year in Trump

by roscoe00 | Dec 30, 2017 | Current Events

It doesn’t matter if you voted for Clinton or voted for Trump. The political world as we know it has now changed and not necessarily for the better.  What used to be a relatively docile political climate under a very restrained President Obama, is now the wild wild west.  What used to be cordial relations between siblings, parents, relatives and friends is now an ongoing war of political opposition.  No longer can conservatives rationally talk to liberals.  No longer can parents talk to their college bound children.  To say this is a divided country is an understatement. 

To blame it all on Trump is irrational but it is to be fully expected given the hotly inflamed election and the blustery stream-of-thought persona that Trump projects.  What has evolved, or rather devolved, is the integrity of any number of institutions, including journalistic media, government bureaucracies and Congress. Before I unsubcribed to the New York Times Facebook page I was inundated with anti-Trump opinions, one after another ad-nauseum… it was all that was available from this revered publication – and this was before the election. This rag had the audacity to publish unabashed volumes of propaganda against this candidate even before the primaries started. It was a disgrace.  Even the judicial system has been infected with unprecedented one-sided legal overreaching.

 What has been completely and utterly exposed is diametrically opposed ideologies that flourish in this country.  Red and Blue states might as well be red and blue planets. You can start with California which is its own commune based country and then look at big cities on the East Coast from Washington to Boston.  Nearly everything in between, in the middle of the country, is in a different world.  As if the laws didn’t matter, sanctuary cities exist to roll out the welcome mat for everybody coming from outside the country.  As if Presidential authority is irrelevant, judges conspire to block every decision. The political climate is nothing short of bizarre. Everyone is choosing sides.

Colleges now wave the banner of far left liberal thought to such an extent that freedom of speech is in jeopardy.  Conservative speakers now routinely are in danger of their lives if they attempt to use the podium at any number of U.S. colleges.  Not to mention the ongoing demonstrations violence and protests at those institutions. This is all to say absolutely nothing about Russian Collusion, Uranium One, Clinton Emails, sexual harassment. What we are witnessing is such a divergence of party lines that one would think it is prelude to the dissolution of the U.S. as we know it. I mean how can a country exist if we cannot reach a consensus on anything? Democrats and Republicans have ceased all interaction. How can that work? 

This phenomenon seems to have happened all in a year or two.  But the old line Media didn’t need to move much to the left to become a political operative for the democratic party.  Perhaps Trump made this easy by acting the way he does.  However this isn’t all about Trump’s personality, this is about exposing the new norm of attack politics – the strategy of destroying your opponents not just defeating them. Trump just happens to be suited to attack politics because he can be counted on to counterpunch at all times. The door is now open to full scale attacks across the political spectrum both liberal and conservative.  And anyone who wishes to hate our President publicly can do so with cheerleaders lined up. There is an implied justification for doing so, because its a pile-on and anyone can join. It seems to be in vogue. The strategy isn’t new, just watch the parade of Hollywood elites and entertainment moguls crawls out of the woodwork every time a conservative President is elected.

So whatever the President’s capabilities are, his achievements, his policies, anything to do with the actual job at hand, they were from even before the election fully and willfully ignored.  This is the way the media now works.  There is indeed pretty much fake news across the board.  However fake news is not really the problem.  The problem with the media is a selective reporting driven by deaf, dumb and blind bias.  They have simply ignored reporting most any news that has a positive spin towards Trump.

And fascinatingly enough Trump pretty much embraces it.  They have never seen anything like it.  Trump simply doesn’t care the way they would like him to care.  Sure he seems to reject and turn on anybody with a bad opinion, but he keeps right on chugging.  The part that is astonishing is that he is getting things done, and people don’t want to like it.  He is not only keeping his campaign promises, but is showing some leadership and actually making some positive and well thought out decisions.  There is progress.  There is a stock market that is going straight up. There’s an economy that is getting  stronger. There are positive things happening that the media would loathe to admit.

So when the polls show 35% approval rating you almost need to treat it as a joke. Just look at the CNN website to see what “fair reporting” looks like. The media bias has driven the public opinion as much as humanly possible and they know it. It all shows up in the polls. It is nearly impossible to hear anything positive through the noise. There is no President in the history of this country who has had anywhere near the amount of negative press as Trump and as a result the media is now justifiably and universally distrusted.

But it’s ok, we needed to see all this. We needed this to be exposed. We need our children to learn from this. One need only to look at Russia and China to see the other side. Where such discourse and opposition are not permitted. Next time a college mob threatens bodily harm and suppresses the opinions of an invited speaker, think of the concept of free speech.  Remember how Hollywood stars all wanted to leave the country when Trump was elected?  Did they all leave for Russia? At least there they wouldn’t need to hear anyone’s opinion but those of Vladimir Putin.    

Retaliatory Politics and the Criminals it Creates

by roscoe00 | Dec 26, 2017 | Current Events

I never knew that criminal investigations were a political tool to shut opponents up. But it seems I have overlooked the obvious when it comes to the fate of many high profile politicians such as Rick Perry, John Rowland and Tom Delay who have had the weight of the entire legal system to contend with.

History Repeats: Selma, Watts, Treyvon, Ferguson and Now Baltimore

by roscoe00 | Dec 26, 2017 | Current Events

What is black and white and red all over? A joke told to me fifty so years ago by an 8 year old. Sad as it might be, racial riots have a consistent history that overshadows everything else that is good about ethnic culture. Even the children are affected. The riots in Baltimore indicate that we still have a problem. It is the latest venue for what appears to be a racially motivated arrest and subsequent death of an African-American from a high crime area in Baltimore, which then proceeded to ignite an anti-cop protest and riot. Back in the day this type of oppression was called “police brutality” a mantra that was chanted by, among others, white upper class hippies when they were being arrested for protesting the Vietnam War and college students across the country after the 1970 Kent State shootings. Even then the Kent State incident was massively reported with graphic and inflammatory photographs of the victims.

But wait, what are we talking about here a racial riot or police misconduct? Well it seems this is a little bit of both. This is a racial riot by a people who believe that the police in Baltimore, or everywhere for that matter, are targeting the African-American race. However, this was also an arrest by six officers, three of whom were black. So how then is this a racial issue? If not, it must then be a reaction against police conduct in general, which would make it fair game for all races. Meaning everyone should be rioting. But everyone, thank God, isn’t rioting so this event isn’t quite as simple as your typical white on black lynching by the police bullies.

No, this event needed some swift action to defuse the racial tension, and some political spin to appear fair to the general population. Thus we have a stack of very serious charges leveled at officers of both races, the most serious against the African-American van driver, who one might have thought must have dragged the victim through the streets by a rope.

According to CNN prosecutors tend to give the officers the benefit of the doubt. Not here. This indictment happened so fast there was no question or mitigating circumstances – the prosecution made it clear, this was cold blooded murder. Why was it prosecuted so fast? Well there must be a no-brainer in there somewhere. That no-brainer is probably the “probable cause” for arrest. There wasn’t any. The guy was arrested because he ran. I really don’t know if it is illegal to run from a cop while not committing a crime but I am pretty sure if they tell you to stop you better stop.

In Fred’s case having a criminal record may give you enough cause to run away from cops for no reason. And I think I can say that sometimes just being black may give you enough reason to assume you are being targeted. But all the reports seem to indicate his only apparent crime was making eye contact with the officers. Of course when you run, even for no reason, it’s an open invitation for police to chase you and throw you in the van. However my issue isn’t with Freddie, it isn’t with the officers, it isn’t even with the “thugs” who think they can take the city apart when the actions of a very few people bother them.

My issue is with the prosecution, a fraternal order of its own ilk that has too much power, and the laws themselves. For one thing consider that the US incarcerates more people (2.0 Million at the moment) per capita than anywhere in the world, by a longshot. Then look at the six police officers which each have a handful charges slapped on them (the driver committed murder?) in very short order and clearly as a political maneuver to appease an angry mob of constituents. Moreover, this prosecutor apparently faces some conflict of interest allegations.

I’m going to be race blind and legally blind here for a second and ask a common sense question: how can six people kill this guy without some sort of premeditated conspiracy? I mean they weren’t beating him up. Did the guy on the bike kill him too? I mean the way the laws are written I’m sure they can charge them with whatever they want and perhaps public support would be on their side. But common sense isn’t. Prosecution misconduct these days is every bit as rampant as police misconduct but isn’t easy to discern and even harder to challenge. And mandatory sentencing guidelines now throw just about everyone in jail and the folks who should be most concerned with that are black males who comprise about 40% of the prison population. My most vehement objection to this mess is that rushing to judgement and overcharging the police in the face of an angry mob is more egregious than the police attempting to do their jobs and failing miserably. Did these police set out that day to kill someone? Was this seriously “depraved murder” and manslaughter? I’m all for charging them with the correct crimes. But when it comes to potentially giving them 50 year sentences for doing their job in the most dangerous sections of the country, I’m not on board with that.

Charles Barkley, at his level headed best, says “we need the cops” especially in black communities where is would otherwise be chaos. Who will be a cop after this? And if these guys aren’t convicted, what happens then, more riots?