The Death of Truth

Well, the Saudis have finally fessed up. They admit that Jamal Khashoggi is dead but claim that he was killed in a fight when he suffocated in a headlock. Sure, and my bridge is up for sale again. Middle-aged intellectuals in poor physical shape always get into fistfights. And why did it take over two weeks for the Saudis to discover this? If MBS really believes that anyone, except maybe Donald Trump, is stupid enough to believe this load of crap he is dumber than Rudy Giuliani.

So, let’s tale a look at the potential ramifications from this mess. Trump is obviously dead set on maintaining a relationship with the Saudis. It’s equally obvious that any relationship in which Trump participates is based on benefits to Trump, not to the United States. Saudi Arabia has never been a true friend of the United States. Since WWII the US has been a huge Saudi customer and recently they have been obtaining weaponry from us, which has been very good for our arms industry, a part of the business community that has always looked out for itself first and the nation later.

But let’s look at just a couple of the areas where the Saudis have been nothing like an ally to us. The obvious one, the one that immediately jumps out was 911, where 15 of the attackers were Saudis, but it doesn’t end there. In 2015 the Saudis dropped their oil prices to $29 a barrel. They did it in an attempt to crush the American fracting industry. I understand that no one in his or her right mind is in favor of fracting. It destroys water sources and causes earthquakes, to say nothing of the fact that the oil it extracts poisons the atmosphere. But that has nothing to do with a foreign nation trying to crush an American industry.  That the Saudis failed in this effort is irrelevant. They tried. It was a directly anti-American move and they should be punished for it, not rewarded. Then of course there’s the little matter of the Saudi butchery in Yemen, where the have used American weapons and involved American Special Forces in their humanitarian atrocities.

There is no reason for us to be in league with the Saudis. If we can shake them loose we will be better off for it. We don’t need their oil anymore so the principal reason to be associated with this medieval kingdom no longer exists. In a few years no one will need their oil and they will revert to the Medieval tribal wanderers they were for millennium. The weapons deal, which Trump shouts to the skies, is, like most of what he says, a figment of his imagination.

This writer has always felt that if we could lose Saudi Arabia we would be free to make a legitimate overture to the Iranian government, an overture they would welcome. Such an alliance would have many more benefits to us. Among them would be our ability to squelch their terrorist activities before they started, a closer control on Iranian nuclear activity, a closer trade policy with the Iranian people who have long admired the United States and currently wish for a closer relationship with us. Take away Trump and a couple of Ayatollahs and the rest of that nation is a lot closer to America than the medieval, tribal groupings that make up Saudi Arabia.

Once Trump is out of office and the Ayatollahs are eliminated in Iran, that nation could swiftly transition to a modern nation. There will be problems involving the complications of Hezbollah, Palestine and the hatred between the separate Muslim sects that lead Iran and Saudi Arabia but it could happen. That is anything but true of Saudi Arabia where 7^thCentury tribal laws and antiquated Whabbhai religious customs threaten to keep thar nation in a state of closed religious culture for decades if not centuries.

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Trump and his sycophants have drummed up the rhetoric about immigrants coming to this country to rape and pillage our countryside. Their lies paint a picture of a criminal horde, infiltrated by Middle-East terrorists that will surge across our border and invade out cities. It’s obvious that the fat liar has conjured up pictures in his tainted brain of these native hordes launching catapults of burning oil at his newly constructed wall from which agents of ICE fire back with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns.

The real problem is that many of the idiots who follow him believe this nonsense, and some of them may vote. Another problem is that white supremacist militia groups are organizing to go to the border to fight back Trumps mythical invasion. Such a move could lead to serious violence. Most people have already forgotten the invasion promoted last year by Trump when he had the same message. That terrifying horde of crooks and rapists actually arrived at our border. Except by the time they got here the only numbered a little less than 400 strong. From that staggering horde of invaders the border patrol actually made only 12 arrests for illegal crossings. When Trump’s numbers aren’t ridiculous they’re hilarious, but then we saw that on inauguration day.

It seems that we have been excusing those that applaud Trump’s disgusting behavior for far too long. Certainly there are some, this writer among them, who have attacked those despicable fools for their aberrant behavior, their stupidity and their almost complete lack of a moral compass for years.

We have a President who has displayed an almost complete lack of veracity, moral stability or a desire to work for the country as opposed to his own interests. And yet he is able to move these voters to lean toward electing more GOP candidates than should be possible in the coming term. We are already into the election and one is forced to ask oneself; have the Democrats not done enough or the right thing to displace Trump’s candidates. He has stated forcefully that a vote for the people he is supporting is a vote for him. But what kind of person would vote for a moral degenerate like Trump? It would seem like there are many of them and that’s a problem. And the bigger problem is that up to now that problem has been pretty much ignored by mainstream media.

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I just watched Trump announce that he was “putting out” a major middle class income tax cut around November 1^st. Is he kidding? What the hell does this moron think he is going to use in the way of money to run the country? But of course he doesn’t think; not about anything. He is obviously lying. No one can get anything done in our government in 2 weeks. He’d like to be able to do something in that time frame. That’s why he wants to be a dictator. Of course Congress won’t be in session on November 1^stso even if someone in the White House could draft this imaginary piece of legislation, Congress wouldn’t be there to pass it. So why would he do this? Mainly because he knows his base is dumb enough to believe it; maybe because he thinks there is some independent out there that is desperate enough to believe it just before the mid-term elections. This piece of massive bullshit goes with Trump Steaks, Trump University and the caravan slithering through Mexico that will overrun our southern border and overwhelm our jails and job market.

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Through the first eighteen months of the Trump administration, the Democrats have lulled themselves into a stupor. Using the false concept that just because Donald Trump is a despicable human being who’s disgusting behavior he is an embarrassment to the entire country, and just because he has demonstrated zero interest in finding out the information he needs to run this country or to keep it safe, does not mean the Democrats can assume that the smart people will flock to the polls and outvote the stupid ones. All you have to do is look at the 2016 election results.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that the Democrats are still not coming up with a clear, viable, popular plan as to what they will do if elected; as opposed to what the GOP will do if elected. Forget about what a despicable piece of crap Trump is. The morons who love him will vote for him no matter what the rest of the world says about him. The Dems have to get to the Independents, the largest group of voters out there, and to do that they have to have a clear and easily understood message.

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And then there was this week. When we talk about horrible weeks, this is as bad as it gets. No, someone didn’t destroy the World Trade Center again, but in one city a white man tried to get into a black church, failed and subsequently shot two black people on the street. He then passed a white man who had seen the crime and was expecting to get shot too the perpetrator just looked at him and said, “Whites don’t kill whites. “

A day later bombs began arriving at the doors of people who the President had complained about at one time or another, ex-presidents, Attorneys General, billionaire philanthropists and actors. And by the end of the week an anti-Semite had killed 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. All the while the President had his attention and his vitriol concentrated on a column of refugees that is winding its way north from Central America, hoping to find asylum from their own nations horrors, here or in Mexico. What the hell is going on in this country?

Many, possibly a majority, believe that Trump is the problem. Many see him as formenting a climate of hatred and division that has these atrocities as an end result. I believe that this true, but we have to be careful how we frame this accusation because many others believe that he is the proximate reason for these crimes and he isn’t. The only ones immediately responsible for these horrors are the men who committed them. They are, at least in the last two incidents, from the same white supremacist groups that have been causing trouble in this country for decades.

Both the incompetent bomber whose product luckily didn’t work and the Pittsburgh killer, surrounded themselves with Trumpian signage and homage that was enough to nauseate a sow, even as they broadcast a series of hate slogans over the Internet. But this is nothing new. Trump’s refusal to single out and condemn David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, or the white supremacists who ran riotous in Charlottesville is, along with his public statements, about anyone but whites, ample evidence that he himself is a bigot and a racist. It was just last week that he admitted in a televised speech that he is also a Nationalist.

Other presidents have had contentious things to say about the opposing party but no President in memory has ever falsely accused them of felonies and treason the way Trump has of the Democrats. No President in history has lied as often, or in as great a volume, as this president has. Angry, ignorant white men with guns, not Muslims or Mexicans are the terrorists of today and neither the President, nor his Party are doing anything except lying about that fact. These criminals recognize this and that’s why they are so free to spread death and destruction around the country. That’s why they feel emboldened to march without hoods covering their craven faces and spread their hatred like a new Ebola wherever they go. They know Trump loves them because they love him and that’s all it takes to get Trump on your side. The Russians, the North Koreans and the Saudis showed us that. Put up a big picture; tell him what a great guy he is and he’ll love you… until he gets a better deal from someone else. That’s the punk who’s running our country. There’s only one way to put him in his place. Vote on November 6^thor before.