God forbid I would agree with Donald Trump

Thanks to President Bashar al-Assad

If President Bashar al-Assad gassed his people in Syria, there is no doubt that he deserves to be drawn and quartered. IF. Then President Barack Obama in 2013, was in the same position as was Trump recently when he called the strike on the Syrian government. Obama backed off because of intelligence from James Clapper, of his national security team, that indicated the Assad government did not cause the attacks. Trump acted once again on visuals that portrayed the gassing, but did not wait for the follow-up intelligence to corroborate the strikes. The kind of thing that could start war.

The Huffington Post criticizes the general media, particularly CNN for relying on handouts from government sources for confirmations and not digging deeper to uncover sidebars that could change the direction of the investigation. Like the fact that where the gas was released, Khan Sheikhoun, was "...ground zero for the Islamic jihadists who have been at the center of the anti-Assad movement in Syria since 2011." The catch here is...

"Up until February 2017, Khan Sheikhoun was occupied by a pro-ISIS group known as Liwa al-Aqsa that was engaged in an oftentimes-violent struggle with its competitor organization, Al Nusra Front (which later morphed into Tahrir al-Sham, but under any name functioning as Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria) for resources and political influence among the local population."

The question arises, was Donald Trump, in his quick reaction, duped by Al Qaeda? It seems to be Donald John's MO to make his decisions based on visuals, and not always those that can be verified. And the experts are asking why would Assad "...risk everything by using chemical weapons against a target of zero military value, at a time when the strategic balance of power had shifted strongly in his favor." But there have been so many instances of gas attacks in the past, that it is hard for one to determine where to place the blame. Particularly including ISIS, Al Qaeda and all their factions.

The U.S. so far has placed the blame clearly on the Syrian government, along with Russia and Iran. During the Syrian War that has been going for about six years, the Syrian government has used chlorine gas regularly and along with chemical attacks some 1,100 Syrians have been killed. There are reports that ISIS has used mustard gas in the country. So, with so many different political coalitions at work, at the same time, in the same place, is there any way to determine who is responsible? Or is this exactly what Bashar al-Assad wants? The perfect cover.

So, what should be the strategy? Iraq had a dictator and George W. Bush captured him and later he was executed for similar atrocities. Russia was also involved in that country, and the U.S. still proceeded. If anyone could pull off another GWB in Syria, it would be Donald Trump. The big question is, would he do it right? To do that would require getting some sound advice, and to do that would probably mean going outside the current administration advisers. That wouldn't happen, but no problem, DT would just order satellite photos and take it from there.

HP's opinion of general media reportage...

"...outlets like CNN embrace at face value anything they are told by official American sources, including a particularly preposterous insinuation that Russia actually colluded in the chemical weapons attack; the aforementioned presence of Russian officers at Al Shayrat air base has been cited as evidence that Russia had to have known about Syria’s chemical warfare capability, and yet did nothing to prevent the attack."

And where does the final blame lie?...

"The real culprits here are the Trump administration, and President Trump himself. The president’s record of placing more weight on what he sees on television than the intelligence briefings he may or may not be getting, and his lack of intellectual curiosity and unfamiliarity with the nuances and complexities of both foreign and national security policy, created the conditions where the imagery of the Khan Sheikhoun victims that had been disseminated by pro-Al Nusra (i.e., Al Qaeda) outlets could influence critical life-or-death decisions."

Just how far are we from WWIII? 

PARODY: White House and Congress are a huge oyster bed

That's right. It was just discovered by an unknown scientist with a secret lab in Keokuk, Iowa, whose father once knew Ernest Hemingway. It was Hemingway's early work, A Movable Feast, about his life in Paris from 1921 to 1926, that got the father interested in oysters. The story goes, once you've lived in Paris, no matter where you go, you take it with you. During his writing on this particular day he decided to close up shop and order a dozen Crassostrea angulata, special offspring oysters from the sinking of a ship from the orient in a Portuguese harbor, along with a carafe of dry white wine.

And then when returning to the writing of his book, he professes his love for oysters in a sentence that his readers will never forget...

"As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and make plans."

What Hemingway did not mention in his book was that those slimy little creatures that slide down your throat like a body does in a water slide, did not have a brain. None of them do, only two ganglia or masses of nerves around their body, but no central brain. However, they are able to survive around higher mammals, even though they have no consciousness. Now there is some difference between lack of consciousness and being unconscious. The term unconscious is sometimes used to refer to people who are, well, just stupid.

The father, let's call him Clyde, was talking to Ernest one day in Key West and brought up the fact that oysters did not have a brain. "Get out of town," Hemi retorted, "sounds like some people I know in Washington." The father always made notes of his conversations with Hemingway, and they were kept in an old trunk in the Keokuk house's attic. He put an asterisk by this particular notation, knowing full well that someday it would become famous. And then along came Clyde, Jr. His father knew he had to get him out of Keokuk for an education because Clyde Jr. was smart.

He decided on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, that claimed 45 Rhodes Scholars, 81 Nobel laureates and 38 MacArthur Fellows. Should be a good enough school for junior, the father thought, and he was right when the son graduated magna cum laude. But Clyde Jr. was tired of the big eastern cities and yearned again for the Midwest. He returned to Keokuk and got a job working for a local doctor who also did research and seemed to be happy for the present. Then, one day after his father had died, he was rummaging through an old trunk in the attic. And there it was.

His father's journal, "My Talks With Ernie," whom Junior knew to be Ernest Hemingway from conversations with Dad. And he sat down right there and started reading. It was fascinating, he thought, Hemingway's love of oysters, and his dad's discovery through his reading that they had no brain. And the writer's comment about them reminding him of people he knew in Washington was just hilarious. He thought about who was in the White House now, Donald Trump. He reflected on a Congress that was, well, a Congress. BINGO! And then he had an epiphany.

 Junior had written his master's thesis on the octopus and their high level of intelligence. He had actually seen one unscrew the lid of a glass jar from the inside and perform various other feats of agility. What if I crossed an oyster with an octopus, what would I get? Probably a Donald Trump or a Mitch McConnell. He almost fell off the old rickety chair laughing to himself. And then it occurred to him, what if I crossed Mitch McConnell with Donald Trump, what would I get? I would no doubt get an oyster. He shrieked again with laughter, this time falling to the floor from the chair that collapsed.

Junior went right out and bought a dozen oysters, ate eleven of them and took number twelve to his basement laboratory. There he began an experiment that would eventually change the way people thought of politicians. He began to research connections between the oyster and legislators and uncovered a bombshell. A study had been done a few years ago that wasn't common knowledge for obvious reasons. Office holders, local/federal and oysters shared a common gene, a lack of consciousness. The gene that allows oysters, and politicians to survive in their own shell.

Clyde Jr., had finally answered the age-old question of just how politicians in general, more specifically Donald Trump and the Republican Congress, are able to perform their duties with absolutely no concern for what the American public really wants. Just close the shell and all is fine. Now, all thinking Americans today know why we are ignored, which doesn't help things, but at least we know. The President and Congress are our oyster.

Thanks to Ben Guarino of The Washington Post for the background for my post.

Mitch McConnell deserves the firing squad

The McConnell maniac at work

Can you imagine the line that would form to take up a gun in the shooting party? There's Chuck Schumer to start with, then Elizabeth Warren followed by Barack Obama, most recently John McCain, and most notably himself, if he could be two places at once. There are more, many that hide their real feeling for this political mutant, because he is so powerful and has absolutely no qualms about what he does. As long as it furthers Mitch McConnell's sick agenda. I realize my proposal is cold-heartened, of course undoable, but I wonder how many Americans would join me in this?

Most of you know that I am an advocate of gun control and solidly against gun violence, but this scenario seems fitting for McConnell who in 2016, "...cut the legs out from a bipartisan effort to keep suspected terrorists from buying guns." Meaning simply that U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, is in favor of terrorists being able to acquire guns in this country. Say what you want, but that's the only way to define it. I know it all sounds bizarre but this is the way the mind of this deranged individual works. To take it even further, you wonder how long before he just becomes fruit loops.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “No majority leader wants written on his tombstone that he presided over the end of the Senate.” He added...

“Breaking the rules to change the rules is un-American. I just hope the majority leader thinks about his legacy, the future of his party, and, most importantly, the future of our country before he acts.”

But these aren't the words of Chuck Schumer. They were delivered "...in 2013, by then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), when Democrats pushed through a similar filibuster change for lesser nominations." It just illustrates once again how muttonhead McConnell will do anything, no matter its damage to the country, to get what he wants. Washington Post writer Dana Milbank wants Mitch McConnell's tombstone to read, "...that he presided over the end of the Senate." Milbank wants to also say this...

“'He broke America.' No man has done more in recent years to undermine the functioning of U.S. government. His has been the epitome of unprincipled leadership, the triumph of tactics in service of short-term power."

I'm just waiting to see his tombstone. 

Fox: The nada news network

Who else? Bill O'Reilly

I can honestly, and proudly, claim that I have not watched Fox News in years. In my earlier days I might have strayed there when I couldn't find anything elsewhere. It wasn't owned by Rupert Murdoch then; he didn't buy Fox until 1985, from Fox Entertainment Group who owned 20th Century Fox Studios. A move from class to tacky and tasteless. 20th Century Fox was where MASH was filmed in the 1970s and 1980s. My wife met the entire cast of "Young Frankenstein" in the commissary during its filming in early 1970. Little did anyone know at the time.

Then in bursts the Rupert family acquiring the Fox Network and immediately spied not only a great platform for radical conservatism, but also a gravy train of revenue from not too bright conservatives that were dying for news but who wanted to remain uninformed. Meaning, they were anxious to look at something presented by the far left but nothing they would have to think about. Bingo, the new Fox News Network sporting people like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Meghan McCain, Ben Carson, Megyn Kelly of Donald Trump fame, and of course Bill O'reilly. There are more but less famous.

Roger Ailes used to to be the head of Fox News and is generally credited with putting the network where it is today. Along with some outstanding personalities to beef up the ratings. But it was also Ailes that started the momentum for sexual harassment lawsuits. Not to be outdone, the most obnoxious person on the air, Bill O'reilly, decided to dip into the company inkwell, and these days the Fox channel is known as the place to go for female TV personalities who want to have sex. But they eventually get wise and turn t all into a money making lawsuit. O'Reilly is the latest on trial.

However, the poor double digit souls who watch Fox seem to eat it up, and the network seems to thrive even more because of the scandals. Shows you the mentality of its audience, and why Donald Trump is now President of the United States. Here's the pathetic story behind all this...

"The network just finished the first three months of the year with the biggest quarterly audience a cable news network has ever had. It’s watched more than any other cable network, including the entertainment ones, and O’Reilly leads the way. Fox is the home for fans of President Donald Trump and Trump himself, who frequently tweets about its shows and reporting."

There's really nothing else to say but...HELP!

Friday T-rump STUPID Roundup

After campaigning as the champion of the working class, Donald Trump has carefully organized an enclave of only the rich to advise him. "...disclosures showed that Trump’s top aides have generated millions of dollars from Wall Street, Hollywood, real estate and the media, holding a slew of investments that intensify the administration’s challenge in navigating potential intersections between officials’ personal finances and their policymaking roles." It all adds up to $2.3 billion. Being the Democratic Socialist I am, can you imagine breaking that up among the U.S. homeless?

Donald John's head of the Federal Communications Commission wants to halt small and rural Internet providers from offering subsidized broadband connections to low-income Americans nationwide. The reason given has to do with a Reagan era act called Lifeline, that provided subsidies for seniors, veterans and rural Americans that is more state run than federal. "Opponents of the decision said the move will limit struggling Americans' ability to choose a good provider, particularly in rural or low-income areas." Anyway you cut it, they're telling business what they can do.

The Daily Beast makes the statement that Jared Kushner is perhaps the only Donald Trump adviser that cannot be fired. Even if he starts WW III? And with the stupidity that surrounds this clan, and the fact that Kushner appears to be circumventing State department power, with absolutely no experience in foreign policy, I personally think it's possible. This all comes from the fact that former adviser, Roger Stone, claimed to host Alex Jones that Trump’s own son-in-law Jared Kushner was leaking information to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Want to reconsider DJ?

What does Donald Trump do when his top adviser resorts to juvenile behavior, and it is with his second top adviser? But wait, there's another factor here; number one is his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Number two is Steve Bannon, the trusted white nationalist aide who Trump has placed a lot of trust in for advice. But now Bannon has been removed from the National Security Table, as Ivanks joins her husband in complaining about Stevo's ideologies and their negative effects on daddy's issues. Like Stan Freberg said: High School Ooh Ooh.

ISIS just described Donald Trump in Arabic terms as an "idiot," which is close enough to stupid to be included in this post. And there is a reason for this they use, saying he doesn't know anything about Islam. I doubt seriously if he is well versed on the faith, but this would explain his stupidity for banning entry to the U.S. of some predominantly Muslim nations by lumping all Islamists into one group of terrorists. "Trump has pledged to 'totally obliterate ISIS,'" according to a piece in NBC News. This bit of strategy no doubt compliments of Steve Bannon.

And finally, John Oliver, host of the HBO political talk-show Last Week Tonight, has dubbed Donald Trump's Russian connection as "Stupid Watergate." Oliver says it is, “a potential scandal with all of the intrigue of Watergate except everyone involved is really bad at everything.” If Donald John is really trying to cover up something, he's doing a worse job than Richard Nixon. Devin Nunes, is out, Mike Conaway is in, wearing a Trump "Make America Great Again" cap. Odds are he could be worse than Nunes but there's no doubt who he favors from the get go.

Coal is for Christmas stockings

What the U.S. has to look forward to

Progressive, former developing countries like Chile decided to look to solar rather than stick with coal power. As a matter of fact, coal-fired power plants dropped 62 percent over the past year worldwide, according to a survey by the Sierra Club. The Washington Post reports...

An investor in Chile wanting to build a hydroelectric dam or coal-fired plant potentially faces years of costly political battles and fierce resistance from nearby communities.

 The environmental impact of coal is horrendous. As an example...

• Coal-fired power plants are responsible for one-third of America’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. 
• Coal combustion waste is the nation's second largest waste stream after municipal solid waste.
• Forests are destroyed by mountaintop removal mining.
• Coal causes a loss or degradation of groundwater.
• Transportation of coal releases air pollution such as soot and can lead to disasters that ruin the    environment.

But the new U. S. President of Profit has decided we need to create more jobs at the expense of destroying the environment so he picks the coal industry as the next goal for all this increased employment. The problem with this is that the entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby's. That's right, a U.S. fast-food chain has more people working for it than all the coal companies nationwide. But Donald John apparently doesn't see the ignorance in his efforts, because this is a passionate group and it got him top TV exposure. They like him, they like him.

Industry experts have pointed out repeatedly, that the coal jobs are extremely unlikely to come back. The plight of the coal industry is more a function of changing energy markets and increased demand for natural gas than anything else. Coal is basically dead, and from here on should be relegated to once a year Christmas stockings. Besides, from experience over the years, coal mining companies have placed minimum emphasis on safety with the former CEO of Massey Energy convicted of conspiracy to willfully violate mine health and safety standards in 2015.

It gets worse: "Coal contains minor amounts of the radioactive elements, uranium and thorium. When coal is burnt, the fly ash contains uranium and thorium at up to 10 times their original levels. And, its 500 tons of small airborne particles, can cause bronchitis, reductions in lung function, increased hospital and emergency room admissions, and premature death. It also contains arsenic, lead and mercury. Solid waste from a typical 500MW coal plant contains 120,000 tons of ash and 193,000 tons of coal sludge from the smokestack scrubber." (Excellent stats thanks to Sourcewatch.org)

Here's one. Trump is cutting back on Obama's environmental protections but then instructs "...federal regulators to rewrite federal rules to reduce carbon emissions." Are they different? Are they better? Or is this just a way to delay and eventually do nothing? I vote for the latter. Apparently a $39 million cost figure under Obama's plan can't be confirmed, but isn't saving the environment worth spending a significant amount of money on? The problems of the appalling conditions in China have been used to signify a need to take action in the U.S. before it is too late.

In total, the statistics may not be real but the problem of pollution in America is very real.

Hackers will get politicians web history and have a field day

If they can break into the National Security Council, they can find out what Senators and House members are doing online. It's just a matter of time and who has the bucks to pay for it. I choose Anonymous because of its known presence in the U.S. and the fact that they easily hacked into a security firm for charity donations which could translate into a budget to coop with other hackers to buy what they cannot hack themselves. Nothing is secure against these people when they make up their minds to do something. They lean left and would consider Republicans fair game.

ISP's are professing the fact that they will not sell our private information, but what if they don't have a choice? Suppose someone takes it?  And then there's the question of whether or not the two GoFundMe campaigns would buy the data from an illegal source. But it's really not important that there is a buyer if an organization like Anonymous has the information in hand. If they do, you can bet that it will soon become public. And you can bet that the GOP Congress, backed by Donald John, will make it impossible for anything to be obtained legally.

PC World reports...

"Still, providers of so-called marketing cloud services—think Salesforce and Oracle—track web users and develop extensive profiles based on shopping and web-browsing habits, said privacy advocate Jeffery Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy."
"It’s likely possible to buy the web marketing profile of individual politicians from a marketing cloud provider, if not an ISP, including the kinds of websites they like to visit, by targeting them using their general location and other publicly available information," he said.

 And then Chester added, “Let the web monitoring and surveillance of the politicians begin.”

But the recent congressional action makes it impossible for consumers to now opt-out in sharing, "...sensitive personal information, including web-browsing history, geolocation, and financial details with third parties." What this means is that the banks can now make hay with not only your money market account where the interest is paltry, but the Republicans have made it possible to sell everything they know about you. Both privacy advocates and one actor are attempting to raise the money to buy congressional names...

"In an effort to strike back against the Republican-led legislation to roll back the FCC privacy rules, advocate Adam McElhaney has raised more than $205,000 since March 25 to buy the personal history of top politicians supporting the resolution."

"Actor Misha Collins has raised more than $86,000 in the last six days in a similar GoFundMe campaign, although he’s well short of his $500 million goal."

What all this says is that the general public does not like the republican Congress.

Back in 2012 I did a piece on supplementing Social Security with junk mail. That year the industry was grossing over $4 billion on the names and personal data of American citizens, which I felt the individual should at least share in. Well, even privacy advocates wouldn't support me because some of their efforts were funded by the people I targeted. My point here is, if it was a $4 billion business years ago, it has grown since then. And the sale of financial data attached to a person is significantly more valuable just by its nature. The banks stand to make even more millions off this data.

Advocate Adam McElhaney, who has already raised $205,000 since March 25 to buy the personal history of top politicians, allows supporters to vote on whose web browsing histories they want to see. Number one is Paul Ryan, two is House member Marsha Blackburn with Mitch McConnell coming in third. The campaign is in its infancy and it's anyone's guess how much these people might raise. There is one down-side to this and that is the possibility this information could get in the hands of either Russian or Chinese hackers where the wheels come off as far as honor.

And of course there is the group that sponsored Richard Snowden, Tailored Access Operations who has 600 employees in the main NSA complex in Fort Mead, Maryland. If that's the case, they could literally embed their people in every ISP in the world. The site TurboFuture lists the ten "Most Powerful (Known) Active Hacking Groups" in the world and a reading of these makes one wonder if there is any reason to protect anything private. With the protection of secrecy and the tools available to these people, you have to believe 1984 is here...again.