Julian Assange was arrested, this week. British authorities made the pickup at the Ecuadorian Embassy where Assange has been hiding for seven years. It seems he was misbehaving so badly that even the Ecuadorians wanted him arrested. He will probably be handed over to the U.S. where we have a number of options, none good for Julian.
Thus ends a very sad adventure. When Assange and WikkiLeaks came to prominence about ten years ago, his organization looked like it was going to be a refreshing window into all the perfidy of the many misbehaving governments in the world.
They started with the information received from Chelsea Manning about U.S. misdeeds in Iraq. Unfortunately, after that very good start, Assange went off on a tangent, seemingly sponsored by the Russians and using the WikkiLeaks voice to attack only U.S. and Western governments. He has continued on this tack, becoming especially prominent during our 2016 elections when WikkiLeaks spent a lot of time hacking into the Democratic Party, while ignoring Trump and the GOP. It’s a shame that an operation with such a bright future degenerated into a simple lobbyist for anyone who wanted to settle a score with the U.S. or the anti-Trump movement.
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This week, Channel 1 aired an interview with a Brooklyn Rabbi about NYC’s big upheaval over measles vaccination. It was interesting because this Rabbi never addressed the subject of public health, which is, after all, what the whole noise is about. Instead he turned the question into a diatribe about anti-Semitism.
It seem lately, that any criticism of anything involving anything Jewish, no matter how trivial or how pointed, becomes an occasion of whines of anti-Semitism. Recently this has popped up in discussions of how the nation of Israel is treating its Palestinian population and now it is in the center of a local discussion of vaccinations against a serious disease that was once thought eliminated but now, at least partly due to lack of vaccination, is thriving.
The local government’s demand for all citizens to be vaccinated has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or any other religious position. This is about public health and for the orthodox community to make it about their religious rights is aberrant. This is America not Saudi Arabia where Sharia Law takes precedence over the public good. This is America where all religions are protected but where no religions are allowed to take precedence over the public good. Anyone who refuses to understand that placing the health and welfare of the public at risk, in order to respect a religious whim, no matter of what religion, has no business being a leader of any sort, or of any religion.
No one, no religious group, social sect or political organization has the right to endanger the health and safety of the general public or the sake of any rule or dictum, let alone one of dubious provenance like the one in question.
At a time when a raving maniac is derailing this nation, it behooves the leaders of the citizenry to band together and use their intelligence, rather than their emotions or traditions, to help us survive in a time of chaos.
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Today, as almost every day recently, Donald Trump spent some of his time attacking John McCain. I’m not going to spend any time praising McCain he doesn’t need it. He has already established bonafides that most of us would kill to have. But what the hell is Trump’s problem?
Well, it’s pretty clear. McCain, whatever his failures, was an American hero, loved by many, looked up to by most. While McCain was suffering for his country Trump was avoiding the draft and partying at East Coast watering holes. Now he is terrified of being compared to McCain. So he hates! And we all know what a pig Trump is when someone doesn’t kiss his fat ass. McCain never kissed anyone’s ass.
That Trump is insane was obvious after his recent Twitter deluges but what about Lindsay Graham? For years, Graham was McCain’s best friend. His friend is dead and all of a sudden this slimy turd is backing Trump in his attacks on McCain. Graham is a disgrace to his profession, his nation and the human race. He should be censored by congress and suspended.
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So we’re all watching AOC and she’s doing just fine! She is a vocal spokeswoman for the Green New Deal, which has great promise, but for all her charisma and all her energy she’s only a cheerleader. AOC is cute and energetic but she isn’t clear and concise. What she needs with her is a logical, practical, analytic mind that will lay it all out in a clear, precise manner that will be easy to understand and that will leave no details vague or unexplained. That will keep the critics from yelling Socialist and getting all the conservative’s balls in an uproar.
The Green New Deal is not Socialism but so what if it is? If it works, it works. What we are doing now isn’t working and in a very short time the earth will burn up or hurricane out so we really don’t have any choice. We have to do something, but this idea of joining so many different problems together in a package to advance the solutions of all of them together makes little sense unless you have no opposition to any of the solutions. But we do! This opposition comes from men and businesses that have an ax to grind and that ax is almost always spelled PFOFIT. Sometimes it is just spelled GREED!
AOC’s problem is that she makes pronouncements that don’t always make sense. They are often very good ideas but they aren’t always good plans. She popped out of the discussion with two statements. “Let’s start by funding the pensions of coal miners,” and “Let’s just start.” Both sound great but what the hell do the pensions of coal minors have to do with cutting emissions and let’s not “just start” until we have a viable plan. Starting without a viable plan is exactly the way to kill the whole deal before it even has a chance to breathe.
Right now the Green New Deal desperately needs someone to organize a plan of action and to then be able to explain that plan to those who can make it happen and to those who will vote on it.
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I know that they have the best of intentions but right now the ultra-Progressive wing of the Democratic Party looks very much like the early Tea Party after 2010. They are so angry they are willing to screw up everything just to get their way. That’s not the road to victory, at least not for the nation as a whole. The Tea Party proved that when they fucked up the government so badly that it has been able to achieve absolutely nothing since 2010. That’s almost a decade of nothing functional happening in a nation that needs so much to happen. It is precisely the reason we now have a disaster like Trump in the Oval Office.
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I went to a wedding in Miami last weekend. The bride’s family was from northern Minnesota. They had been told not to talk politics with me and I had been firmly instructed by my son, not to talk politics with them. But life being what it is I ended up engaged with a number of those northern conservatives and each one told me the same thing. They had voted for Trump because he was different. They were fed up with both parties and saw no hope that either had any solution to the problems of the country so they had gone for a guy who wasn’t a politician in hopes that he would really drain the swamp.
They understood that they were voting for a liar, a degenerate womanizer and possibly a criminal, but they already felt that way about everybody else who was running so they took a chance. Now they understood that the chance hadn’t worked out but they still don’t agree with much that is being proposed by those opposing Trump so what to do?
I suggested my choice for president to one guy and there was no way he was going to buy a gay president. The other two just shrugged, unwilling to commit. But they’re not the problem. They are part of the 31% that still, at least to some degree, back Trump. That leaves 69% against him and that’s a hell of a majority when all it takes is one vote more to win.
I know I’ve made a lot of noise about the stupidity of the average American voter but in the end I have faith in my fellow Americans to finally do the right thing when it comes to picking the next American President. I think that more than enough of us have had Trump up to our eyeballs and that finally most of us are ready for a straight shooter who is intelligent enough to realize exactly what the job of the President entails and have the capacity to do it according to the constitution in such a way that it brings the most benefit to the most people in this country and around the world.
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I’m not alwaysa fan of Reader Supported News’ Andy Borowitz. Satire is a great tool when it’s on the nose but it’s boring when it misses. However, his piece this week on Trump replacing Secretary of Education, Betsey de Vos with Lori Loughlin was a real knee slapper and makes perfect sense if you think like Trump.
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I was as listening to a discussion about this not terribly important situation this week and was struck by the arrogance of Ms Loughlin as she came and went from the courthouse. This once famous actress seemed to be reveling in the fact that she was back in the spotlight, even if it was for a criminal activity. It’s going to be very difficult for anyone to look favorably on any defense her lawyer manages to come up with. If however, she manages to get off, she has certainly strengthened her case for the Borowitz’ generated Trump appointment.