Fox News – frustratedboomers

A Pocketful of Rudy

by Roxanne Tellier

It’s been eye-opening (if you’ll pardon the pun) to discover how I time waste while I recover from this eye surgery. It’s hard to see print, on screen or paper, so I’m spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching a ton of political and comedy entries, but also getting knee deep into the murky waters of decluttering and crafting. Should this next Covid wave hit hard, I’m swimming in craft supplies, so no one need worry that their holiday stockings will be empty come December – Glitter R Us! (I’M KIDDING! Or … am I?)

With nothing pressing or even ON the social calendar, I’m not missing a minute of the madness as the countdown continues to the American election. Even sat down and tried to watch the trump/Biden debate (Shawn and I were better prepped with quips and answers than either of those septuagenarians, but I digress) Still waiting for that October Surprise. Not sure there’s gonna be one, at this point.

Although, that’s not for lack of trying. Witness a pretty obvious attempt at a Hail Mary pass from Rudy Giuliani, the man once known as America’s Mayor.

In a nutshell, Rudy wants us to believe that he somehow stumbled upon a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden, at a computer repair shop. As Slate dot com explained,

“According to the Post, someone abandoned the laptop at a computer repair shop in Delaware, and the data on the hard drive subsequently reached the FBI and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is also a lawyer for President Donald Trump. Steve Bannon is said to have notified the Post of the hard drive’s existence, and Giuliani then supplied the tabloid with a copy. The Post has now run a series of exposés based on the contents of the hard drive, the most purportedly explosive of which has to do with an email that Hunter Biden supposedly received in 2015 from Vadym Pozharskyi, a board adviser at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. In it, Pozharskyi thanks Hunter Biden for introducing him to then–Vice President Joe Biden. This would seem to be evidence limply supporting the Republicans’ allegations that Hunter Biden, who worked for Burisma, had convinced his father to do favors for the Ukrainian company using the powers of the vice presidency.”

Quite a coincidence, that the guy that’s been heavily involved in the nonsensical Ukrainian conspiracy theories that got trump impeached, just happened to find the evidence he’s been promising for months, already conveniently converted into PDF format that is, unlike regular email, stripped of any code that might actually show provenance.

We’re to believe that the same Hunter Biden that was savvy enough to be a lawyer and partner in two international investment firms somehow just snapped, and left evidence that coordinates with what Giuliani has been touting, in a rundown shop in some mall halfway across the country, conveniently run by a blind, but plucky owner, able to not only fix said laptop, but decode any potential passwording or security built in. And that guy also just happens to be best buds with Giuliani. Got it. Right.

It’s not surprising that no reputable journalists or outlets are taking the story seriously; you could shoot a cannon through the holes in this tale. Even the journalist with his name appended to the Post story has disavowed the piece, and there is scant evidence of anything remotely considered fact. It’s classic Russian disinformation tactics, right down to the hinted upon, though not pressed, suspicion of pedophilia. No authentication has been produced for any of the files.

But even trump’s most loyal cronies are distancing themselves from the story, and AG Bill Barr has taken a little Me Time, Down Time, for himself, rather than answer trump’s bellows for an investigation.

Finally, FOX News, which, like the Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, passed on the story. They just didn’t trust Giuliani, or the provenance of this well travelled hard drive’s data.

And then – just when Rudy began to slip out of the news again – the new Borat 2 film trailer arrived, along with some juicy footage of America’s Mayor trying to get jiggy with an actress in the film whom he has been told is just 15 years old.

If you’ve seen the film (and blink, and it will be gone, after the election) the scenes are cringeworthy indeed. This is cinema verité – the footage is candid camera style. Giuliani believes he is being interviewed by a young, naïve woman who is a little in awe of his legacy. Throughout their interaction, his ill-fitting grin is in full display, and he frequently touches her arms, leg, waist, hip, with a familiarity that any adult female will recognize as a type of foreplay.

When the actress asks him if he would be more comfortable continuing their chat and drinks in the bedroom, he is agreeable, and sits on the bed, as they both ham-handedly attempt to remove each other’s microphones. Rudy lays back and puts his hand down his pants, a move he later describes as tucking in his shirt, but that seems to involve a fair bit of genital handling en route. At which point, Sasha Baron Cohen, in character as Borat, and dressed in lingerie, bursts into the room, crying that the girl is, at 15, too old for him, and offering to take her place as a sex partner.

Giuliani has denied any sexual intent. But most aren’t buying his bluster.

The spotlight has been on Giuliani since he joined the president’s legal team in April of 2018, while former fixer, Michael Cohen, was under criminal investigation. (He was later charged, and did prison time, for campaign finance violations, tax fraud and bank fraud.)

Right from the jump, Rudy had both feet firmly implanted in his mouth. In TV appearances, he implicated trump in federal crimes, and suggested that he regularly paid off women to keep quiet about alleged affairs, saying that Cohen had to either pay off Stormy Daniels, or watch trump lose the election.

On a personal level, Rudy’s love life was on evidence when his third wife filed for divorce on the basis of a current affair with a married woman named Maria Rosa Ryan. In the past, Giuliani had held a press conference to announce that he’d be leaving his second wife to take up with his mistress. Unfortunately, his second wife learned that news along with every one else as he’d neglected to mention it to her prior to the interview. And of course, Giuliani’s first marriage was annulled when he discovered that his wife of 14 years was his own cousin. Oops!

Meanwhile, son Andrew Giuliani is best known for suing Duke University after he was cut from the golf team. He’s currently serving as the Public Liaison Assistant to trump.

Giuliani squandered his accidental canonization as “America’s Mayor” in pursuit of relevance and to help his idol, trump. Most Americans didn’t really know much about Giuliani before events of 9/11 propelled him into a perception of being a widely admired civic leader. In fact, prior to the attack, Rudy was better known as the ‘leaky’ Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), famous for making sure his pet journalists were made aware of where and when suspects would be taking their ‘perp walks’ into court. This made him friends of those print and broadcast media hounds who were more concerned about getting eyes on their headlines, than on the defendant’s protected rights to a presumption of innocence, and a fair trial. It also created a bond between the journalists and the prosecution that virtually assured that only the proscribed narrative would be aired.

But in truth, there were many in New York City – and particularly members of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) – who had their own fire axes to grind on his mayoral decisions.

Giuliani was sworn in as mayor of New York City on January 2, 1994, less than a year after the World Trade Center had been attacked with a 1200-pound bomb that had been concealed in a metal truck, and parked in the basement. Six people died that day, 1000 were injured, and 50,000 more were forced to evacuate the building.

In a report written after the event, that was published in 1994 by the FDNY, a crucial component in the deaths and injuries had been the inability of firefighters and their officers to properly communicate over their analog radios. This issue was flagged as a ‘vital issue’ that needed to be addressed.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t until March of 2001 that new digital radios were deployed, but, even so, the new radios were shelved after the radios failed to work during a basement fire in Queens. The old analogs were put back into service, and were what the FDNY had to deal with on 9/11, when nearly 3000 people were killed in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Of the dead, 343 of them were uniformed New York City firemen.

Mayor Giuliani was blamed for the failure of the new radios, because, as was claimed by a report issued a month later by the New York City Comptroller, his administration had willfully and recklessly violated city contracting rules, by issuing a no bid, non-competitive contract that was basically just an extension of an existing Motorola contract. In fact, the new digital radios, purchased in an improper process, were never properly tested before being distributed to the FDNY.

“As the IAFF video documents and as the 9/11 timeline confirms, at 9:32 am on September 11^th, an FDNY Chief ordered all members in the North Tower to the lobby. Even though he repeated the order, not a single company responded.

At 9:59, the WTC South Tower collapsed, and at 10 am, the order to abandon the North Tower was repeated. Inside the North Tower were 121 firefighters who never heard that order. They perished when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 am.

“On 9/11, firefighters went into the North Tower and started ascending the tower, yet they were being called back, and they kept going, “ said Richard Salem, an attorney who has been representing several of the firefighters’ families who lost loved ones when the North Tower collapsed. “Not one other uniform(ed) officer from any other department (who had functioning radios) perished in that tower other than the FDNY.

Despicably, Giuliani tried to cover up his own malfeasance by telling the 9/11 Commission that the North Tower firefighters had ignored the radio orders because of ‘their willingness, the way I describe it, to stand their ground.”

Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, who lost his son Jimmy in the North Tower, will tell this tragic story to anyone who will listen. He and other surviving family members shadowed Giuliani during the 2008 primary, and carried on a media campaign that was picked up by outlets like The Guardian.

“These radios did not work in the WTC in 1993, and they did not work in 2001. We got the story out there, but when the media christened him ‘America’s Mayor’, it all went away.”” (Salon, October 2019.)

Two weeks after September 11, Giuliani asked then-New York Governor George Pataki to cancel New York City’s 2001 mayoral election, and to extend his term limit, so that he could stay in office, claiming that, “there were people that wanted me to do it. I never asked (Pataki) to do it. I never made the decision to do it.”

Pataki considered the idea, but then decided it was a ‘bad idea both as a matter of principle and politically, “adding “Are you really, right now, after a terror attack on our state, our city, asking me to just cancel the entire election? I am a conservative. We respect the law. For God’s sake, you’re a prosecutor! You know the law!”

In January of 2019, Giuliani was asked in a New Yorker interview if “Saying things for Trump, not always being truthful about it—do you ever worry that this will be your legacy? Does that ever worry you in any way?”

And Rudy’s answer was, “Absolutely. I am afraid it will be on my gravestone. “Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.” Somehow, I don’t think that will be it. But, if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead.”

And he added, “I don’t think about my legacy. All I think about is doing a good job and what I believe in. When I was mayor, I got criticized for a lot of things I am praised for now. “

Nearly two years later, the 76-year-old is even closer to the grave. And it’s hard not to wonder when he will ever actually take responsibility for his misdeeds.

Devil’s Advocating for Dummies

by Roxanne Tellier

So does trump really have COVID-19? Or is this a giant hoax, meant to get him out of further debates, and create a ‘sympathy’ vote for the poor sick baboo?

Will he emerge from quarantine, rosy and rested, to crow to the world that he rassled that ol’ bug to the ground, and it’s not nearly as bad as those so called ‘experts’ say! Oh, and by the way, the price of that miracle drug, hydroxychloroquine, which he just happens to have 29 million doses of, right here – just got more expensive?

Are Mike Pence and Ivanka taking turns trying on crowns, both assuming they’ll be ascending to the throne?

And if it is a hoax, does he know that it is? Could it be that his handlers were so freaked by his debate performance that they created a false testing in order to manipulate him into silence for the last month of the campaign?

(And no, you can’t point to how the doctors are saying they’re proceeding with his care at Walter Reed. For one thing, a narcissist, or any one with the right personality, can make themselves sick unto death if they BELIEVE that they are ill. It has happened many times, as any medical expert can tell you. Le mal imaginaire.)

(And also – so now you trust these doctors? The two main ones are actually Army, which means that trump is their Commander-in-Chief, and they cannot disobey a direct order given to them.)

Or is it actually possible, in an “Isn’t it Ironic?” kind of way, that the guy who has ‘downplayed’ (read: lied to Americans about the severity and infectious transmission) a potentially fatal virus, mocked those who protected themselves with masks, and insisted that the United States re-open to save HIS economy, 210,000 dead Americans be damned, and thrown the nation’s future – it’s children – under the bus – or rather, down the coal mines to act as it’s canaries …. might have finally, and with complete predictability, caught the killer bug thru his own insane flouting of science and reason?

I can argue any side. There’s enough mis- and disinformation flying around right now to fill the SkyDome. A history of lies and a lack of transparency means that very few people are prepared to simply swallow that trump became (justifiably) ill, and is being successfully treated by expert medical staff and scientists at Walter Reed.

And, if it isn’t a postponement mechanism, a mere ploy to stave off an election he knows he will most likely lose, it is to be hoped that he is now experiencing just a tiny bit of the agony, uncertainty, fear, and pain that he condemned every American to, by not attempting to prevent the virus’ forward movement, or to help those who became ill due to a lack of leadership.

Imagine that – trump and Melanoma are being treated for a disease they called a ‘hoax,’ through government healthcare that they deride as ‘socialism’ when it’s available to the rest of the country. He’s got the best care, all mod cons, and it’s not costing him a penny. Imagine that.

But first… hasn’t it been lovely and quiet for the last few days? Almost no tweets, no angry, ugly rants, no ‘mustsee’ press conferences ….sure, we’re all following what the media is teasing out from Walter Reed and the White House about the president’s health, but, in truth, it hasn’t been nearly as chaotic. Have you noticed that? It’s like a breath of fresh air. A lack of trumpiness makes the whole world feel so much cleaner and clearer. And quieter.

(This too, I worry about. We’ve been on the crack pipe of constant news, drama, anger, suspicion, endless highs and lows, and the ridiculous belief that we are somehow on top, in the know, and part of the larger histrionics emanating from the Conniption-in-Chief for nearly four years. Is there enough Metoprolol in the world to safely block constant adrenaline stimulation and to bring down our blood pressure before our hearts just explode like a grenade? Fingers crossed!)

What can I tell you that you haven’t already heard in a dozen different ways, by a dozen talking heads or more, all of which have very good reason to believe that some, if not all, of the ‘official’ information is not as it appears?

Medical pundit Dr Sanjay Gupta says trump’s in a way more serious condition than we have been lead to believe. Doctors at Walter Reed are throwing “the kitchen sink” at Trump, feeding him 3 different “serious” medications, one of which is experimental in nature, another which is only meant to be given when the patient is hospitalized, and on oxygen.

And yet, here come the videos! See trump smile and say he’s fine! See trump pretend to sign blank papers in a simulated office as empty of reality as the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Notice that he’s wearing the same suit that he was wearing when he strode from the White House to the waiting helicopter on Friday afternoon, after the Stock Market had closed for the day and the week. Wonder how it could be that, even at this time, trump’s STILL not wearing a mask, to prevent transmission to, at minimum, the photographer taking the video, the Secret Service escorts, and probably a half a dozen White House staffers.

Consider that the doctor overseeing the medical team surrounding the POTUS, and monitoring his care, is not an MD .. Medical Doctor … but rather, a D.O., Doctor of Osteopathic medicine. Osteopathic medicine focuses on holistic care, so if trump needs acupuncture, cupping, or manual manipulation, he’s got the right guy in charge. I might have preferred a Respirologist or Infectious Disease expert in charge of me in a similar situation, but we all know that trump must be trump. So – it is what it is.

Whether this is a hoax or not, one thing is certain; the Biden campaign is making hay while the sun shines. Upon hearing of trump’s diagnosis, the campaign immediately announced that there would be no ‘negative’ advertising released while the president was hospitalized. (The Republican campaign just laughed at the suggestion, roared that they’d do no such thing on their end, and kicked dust in the face of the nearest 98 pound weakling for good effect.)

In truth, with only 30 days remaining until the election, Biden’s rising in the polls like an overly excited hot air balloon. If the GOP had thought a sympathy vote might help, in truth, many Americans, both right and left wingers, are nodding thoughtfully as they tell pollsters that the guy really just brought it upon himself by taking zero precautions. Karma, baby.

Oh sure, his base is having a ‘come to Jesus’ moment, but that’s pretty much something they do on a weekly basis, so no one’s terribly surprised that the hypocrisy is flowing fast and thick. That’s just what we expect from them.

Sadly, if trump had just actually been the ‘wonderful’ ‘perfect’ ‘best’ president he always claimed to be, he’d have no need to be afraid of this election at all – people would be rushing to vote for him, sick or not sick. But he wasn’t. He was terrible. He was a cruel, sadistic, manipulative, greedy, soulless mess, and to vote for him is just to accept another four years of more of the same.

Let’s take a little look at what else happened this week, maybe get some perspective on why trump just MIGHT want to hide out from, for a few days, to let the air out of some of the worst updates that have plagued the trump administration.

Hmm… last Sunday and Monday we got a good look at trump’s taxes, and learned that he has paid a grand total of $1500 to the IRS over the last dozen or so years. Then, in rapid succession, we learned that Kimberly Guilfoyle, the shrieking magpie who scared us all with her tirade at the GOP Convention, lost her job at FOX when her assistant sued, and won, a $4 million dollar settlement for having to put up with Kim’s sexual harassment. (Kim’s Don Jr’s boo, by the way. A match made in an alternate universe.) And that trump’s previous campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was a domestic abuser who is having a mental breakdown that is likely caused by an investigation into his role in campaign fraud in the 2016 election.

Two white supremacists were charged with voter suppression in Michigan, and the GOP governor of Texas announced that there’d be only one drop off ballot box per county, even though some Texan counties are as large as 1500+ square miles. 1600 DOJ alumni sent an open letter, warning statement about AG Bill Barr using his influence to undermine free and fair elections, and a member of the Grand Jury on the Breonna Taylor case is blowing the whistle on the Kentucky AG, who lied to the public about their deliberations.

And as the coronavirus surges across several states, CNN is playing tapes of Melanoma saying, “give me a f**king break” about immigrant children separated from their parents, a whistleblower let it be known that trump officials were being pressed to make favorable comments on that kid who shot three people, killing two, in Portland, and it was learned that Supreme Court hopeful, Barrett, failed to disclose that she signed on to an ad calling for the repeal of Roe v Wade, and accepted donations from an anti-gay group.

It also turns out that trump and his entourage arrived late to the debate stage on Tuesday, which meant that they did not have time to be virus-tested. The Clinic accepted his admin’s assertion that they were all negative, believing that there was some sort of ‘honour’ amongst this group of criminals, when in fact, trump was channelling Genghis Khan, figuratively launching plague-ridden bodies into the camp of his opponent.

And while Chris Wallace, Biden, Biden’s family, along with anyone who attended the debate, Secret Service people, attendees at a Minnesota rally, a New Jersey fundraiser, and many more now wait to see if they’ve been affected by Typhoid Trumpy, many of his own admin and aides, including Chris Christie, Kelly Anne Conway, and trump’s current campaign manager, Bill Stepien, amongst others, have all tested positive.

This is just despicable. Utterly reprehensible. Contemptible. Beyond the pale. Trump endangered, and possibly infected all of those people without a care for anyone but himself.

So is this odious, loathsome, monstrous, cretin on death’s door? I don’t really care, do you?

The general attitude across the planet, minus his tiny band of blindly fanatical followers, is that, if he is ill, it is hoped that he has a very lengthy recovery And is then severely, brutally, decisively, trounced at the polls, and forced to leave office, and probably the country, with his tail between his legs, until such time as his many crimes are brought to trial, and he along with them.

I’d send him a get well card, but …

How Much for Your Soul?

by Roxanne Tellier

On the day after 4 million students from all around the world marched to protest their respective governments’ lack of decisive action on climate change, Bob Lefsetz noted that the photos and the chatter had already been pushed off the pages of both terrestrial and online press sites.

Just a few of those crazy 4 million kids who marched for climate change

Today I noticed several cynics on social media, who found the very idea of kids marching for climate change laughable. Rather than admire the strength and courage shown by Greta Thunberg and her supporters, they wallowed in the belief that there is no point in fighting those in power.

It’s like all the marches, the sit ins and bed ins and hunger strikes of the sixties never even happened. As though the broken heads and bodies of civil rights activists were a myth. As if the peaceful protests of leaders like Ghandi just didn’t matter.

Listen. If protests didn’t work, governments wouldn’t be always trying to stop people from protesting.

When the people finally stand up and find their voices, the people can change the world. We boomers did; we stopped a war. Maybe these kids can save the planet. Maybe we can help them.

If we don’t then we’ve proved that this is how the world works now. We gear up towards an event, take our selfies, and then we’re on to the next crisis. Even if we really, really care about that event – a political debate, our children marching to try and save the planet – there’s always another spike, another shock, another jolt, coming at us before we’ve caught our breath from the last. Which means we never actually get anything done.

It’s exhausting. And it’s getting us nowhere.

All week long I’ve been trying to put my finger on the overwhelming atmosphere of our political environment. It’s exhausting. It’s depressing. It’s like we’ve had our adrenal glands hooked up to a milking machine. Our supply of fight or flight hormones are running so low now that many people would barely blink at a sharknado.

While we can certainly point to the Mango Mussolini as the main culprit who has conditioned us to expect multiple adrenaline jolts per day, the media also bears a lot of responsibility for having married our emotions to this stressful world of social media and nonstop ‘breaking news!’

When I was growing up, the news occupied a sacred place in society. At fairly regular intervals, the citizenry would be asked to pause in what they were doing, and pay attention to the news of their country, and the world. Some read newspapers, some watched their televised updates at 6pm and before bed, but overall, most people had at least a vague sense of how governments ran. Sometimes we were told that things were good, and it was time to celebrate. Other times, we’d be informed of battles and wars that needed our attention, and sometimes, that required the service and sacrifice of our fittest young people. But overall … news was for grown ups, and it was important.

However, it was also something from which you could take a vacation, and return to, without missing much.

Those were the days when channels still ‘signed off’ for the night .. often with beautiful, patriotic, or regional slideshows. Remember CITY TVs paean to the city of Toronto?

That’s Toronto … People City ….

Good times.

But then, somewhere along the line, some edgy television exec decided that every broadcast moment had to turn a profit. Overnight, the sanctity of a news hour was discarded for the glitz and glamour of the tackiest of game show stages. Every decade, another of the venerable newscasters whom we’d come to trust and revere, was either rehabilitated into a botoxed, liposuctioned fashion plate, or unceremoniously shown the door for a younger, prettier, sexier, news reader.

On June 1, 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the first 24-hour cable news station. Headline News followed in 1982, .and MSNBC and FOX News were right behind them. News had effectively been monetized, and the world would never again be the same.

I have to keep reminding myself that political junkies are only about 11% of the population. How are we supporting all of those stations?

It just seems like there must be even more of us. But that’s because social media – and a disturbingly populist wave – has narrowed our visions. Everyone’s got an opinion on social media. But that doesn’t mean that everyone understands what they’re being force fed.

Right now, we in North America are awash in the hopes and dreams of political candidates, all of whom wish to steer their ships of state or nations.

But it seems that quite a lot of politicians – primarily those with a bend to the right – are more comfortable playing ‘gotcha!‘ with their opponents. Apparently that’s way easier than presenting a progressive, doable policy their party can follow, and their electorate can agree upon.

And many, many, many people are very easily lead. Once seeds of doubt and mistrust have been planted, social media is happy to keep watering those misdeeds with liberal tears.

A friend messaged me the other day, with this anecdote.

Who knew I never needed a head? or a brain?

“I was getting my hair cut, and they were all talking about Trudeau in blackface. I listened for about twenty minutes. None of them had seen the photo, but they were horrified. One had a friend that called her, crying. When I explained that it was a picture of him at a party, dressed as Aladdin, and that he had darkened his face and hands, they all said, “ahhhh.. well that’s not so bad.” Then I quoted him as saying, “I am really pissed at myself.” They were all lovey dovey again until one of them started reading from her phone on why any colouring of the skin is racist and they were all up in arms again.”

It sure doesn’t seem like denigrating and mudslinging a political leader makes people very happy. In fact, it seems to only add to the miasma of uncertainty that so many have in recent elections.

Voters are already conflicted. Too many choose to vote against party leaders, rather than FOR a logical, progressive plan forward. Keep on tearing down those the voters want to look up to, and you’ll soon have an electorate that just can’t be bothered to vote at all.

That works out great for those parties that can’t win fairly. Those who choose to use dirty tricks, gossip and innuendo to attempt to sway swing voters towards their own party need to realize that these ruses serve to make voters even more distrustful and cynical of whomever is currently in charge of their country.

Today’s smearing of Trudeau is tomorrow’s smearing of Scheer. And while both parties wallow in the mud, and try to defend themselves against attacks, neither party is actually working to make the voter’s life any better.

Most people are happiest when their country is chugging along, doing well economically, and not hurting those who are already hurting. Most people rarely think about hurting other people, just because they can.

But there are some people who will put financial gain above all else.

Today, the news is full of stories about American troops being sent to Saudi Arabia, to be used as paid mercenaries – soldiers of fortune against Iran. Trump says that America must put their own military on the line to die for ‘the kingdom’ because “Saudi Arabia pays cash.”

The Saudis also paid cash to the murderers who perpetrated the attack on the United States on 9/11. And surely, their own dollars paid for the brutal murder and dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Can you buy a nation’s soul with cash? Apparently you can, in the United States. The Saudis ‘pay cash’ … so they’ve bought trump .. and America’s might and military.

Canadians will soon be asked to either reinstate Justin Trudeau as prime minister, or to choose another leader to fill that position. That next leader will have to work with the United States, both economically, and politically.

The question we need to ask ourselves is .. will our next leader also believe that everything we hold dear can be bought? Our planet, our bodies, our morals – are they all for sale? How much for our country ?

The question we need to ask ourselves is which leader we believe we can trust to behave morally and ethically when they are asked to make decisions about our relationship with America and the other countries of the world.

How much for your soul?

Does this Mueller Report Make Trump’s Ass Look Fat?

by Roxanne Tellier

Please Note: I wrote this on the morning of March 24th, and, like all days since Trump’s inauguration, additional info, obfuscation, and possibly, even more obstruction in the Barr four page note on the Report, happened immediately thereafter.

If you’ve ever thought you’d like to be a blogger or a journalist, this time period is either exhilarating, or utterly exhausting… For me, it’s a little of both. Anyway… here we go…

……………………………………………………………….

FOX News is trying to spike the ball on it already, declaring total victory for Trump before anyone has even seen what is in the statement, and despite the results of a poll of their own viewers showing that a majority of Americans believe that the president tried to interfere in the investigation.

mueller report

In other news, the president has threatened the American people with his quasi Brown Shirts enforcement crews of military, police and motorcycle heavies, should the evidence contain anything that hurts his standing or feelings .. but mostly his feelings.

All because the Mueller Report dropped on Friday, This is the 500 plus page compendium that Mueller handed in to Attorney General William Barr, a Trump supporter, recently elevated to replace former AG Jeff “Keebler Elf” Sessions.

sessions barr AG To recap, Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia probe on March 2, 2017, and then found he’d become the butt of Trump’s fury nearly every day thereafter, until he resigned/was fired on November 7, 2018.

Just as I was thinking to myself, hmmm .. wouldn’t you think that a pivotal post like Attorney General for all of the American people should be a bipartisan office?, this came over the social media transom ….

” … CNN reports that McGaughey, the husband of Barr’s youngest daughter, has been hired as an attorney in the White House counsel’s office, where he’ll “advise the president, the executive office, and White House staff on legal issues concerning the president and the presidency.” While the division is separate from the legal team that defends Trump in the Russia investigation—a group of leading lights that includes Rudy “maybe there was collusion” Giuliani—its work nevertheless does “intersect with the investigation.” (Trump reportedly blamed former White House counsel Don McGahn for failing to bring the probe to a close.) Meanwhile, Mary Daly, Barr’s oldest daughter, will be leaving her current job in the deputy attorney general’s office for a gig at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which has had its own Russian intrigues.”

This is how potentially explosive political info is handled, in Trump’s Bizarro World. “Nice kids you got there.. would be a pity if something… happened … to him .. or her … “

Every day, in every way, the Trump administration is penning an alternative American history that weaves Mafia style organized crime intrigue along it’s white supremacist backbone. It’s like we’re living in a chronicle of our times in the form of a forced literary mating of The Godfather and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Be that as it may, Trump, his ‘friends,’ and those who profit from his administration, have softened the ground well in advance of the release of the report; they’ve made sure that his base and the undecided see any rejoicing over this report as a ‘piling on’ by the Dems, and a celebration prior to a launch of a charge of impeachment, rather than what it is … an attempt to pull back the curtain on a very real attack on the American electoral system – as broken as it may be – by a hostile foreign power.

trump not legit pres The Mueller Report’s primary question is, Did Donald Trump collude with Russia to win the presidency?

And the follow up, unspoken but explosively critical second question would be, “If it is found conclusively that he did, is he actually the legitimate current president of the United States?”

At this point we have no idea if those questions have even been definitely answered. All we have is the hope of a hero, in the form of Mueller, offering us the reassurance that there can be a return to order, that real leadership is in our future, and that our faith can eventually be both earned and restored by those whom we have elevated to positions of great power.

To my mind, there should really never have been any confusion over whether or not Trump was working with the Russians. Prior to the election, he stood in front of a televised rally, and said, ” “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” It appears that they were, since that night, Russian hackers tried to get into Clinton’s personal email.

That’s what actually happened, even as Trump and his minions tried to laugh off the comment as a joke, and the hack as a coincidence – even as he continued to repeat the same request on Twitter.

donald_tweet Russia emails ” What, you’ve never jokingly invited a hostile foreign power to compromise your nation’s cyber-security before?” (Vanity Fair headline)

And we also knew that they had indeed fiddled with the election .. by June 2017, it was being reported in Bloomberg and other major business and political journals.

putin hacked election ” Russia’s cyber attack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.”

Now, make no mistake, the very idea that a candidate for president of the United States – or an actual president who blithely fires heads of justice departments, and discloses highly classified security information to Russian foreign ministers while they dally in the Oval Office – might be compromised by a hostile foreign power, should be of interest to the average citizen.

But sadly, that’s not really the case. Jane and Joe Citizen have a life to lead, kids to raise, a mortgage to pay. For most, political or military history is just trivia to everyone except aspiring Jeopardy contestants. There hasn’t been a ‘war’ on American soil since the Aleutian Islands Campaign of 1942. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War are baby boomer lore, and “Russia – tear down that wall!” is nothing but a bit of Reaganology. In polls taken around 2016, 55% of Americans thought that Russia was America’s enemy and unfriendly, but 25% were unsure, and 19% thought Russia was a friendly nation.

America is just not that into Russia.

Russia, on the other hand, has a long history of anti-Americanism, a simmering, seething hatred of the United States, and a belief that the U.S. is Enemy Number One. Russia doesn’t forget easily, and Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, has no soft spot for America or her president, despite Trump’s belief that he and Vlad are BFFs.

Truthfully, given Mueller’s mandate for the report, there should be little new information for anyone but those who’ve lived in an underground bunker since the summer of 2016.

Don’t be waiting for any juicy bits of gossip or innuendo about Trump’s money laundering or corruption – that’s the stuff that Mueller passed on to the Southern District of New York and other justice departments better able to service the subpoenas already issued, and the almost one hundred rumoured subpoenas still being held under lock and key for the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.. soon come, mon ….

Like Al Capone, whom the justice system pursued for nearly a decade before he was brought down for tax evasion, there’s an array of Trump/GOP criminality that has been, and is being, committed in plain view, every day, since the inauguration, and it’s only now that some of these tangled webs are getting straightened out. It’s exhausting, watching the swamp attain new depths daily. I think a lot of people started to believe it was unstoppable by anything but supernatural means.

“Mueller’s report is likely geared not towards telling a story, or answering non-criminal questions, but toward fulfilling the purpose of the regulation – that is, explaining his prosecutorial decisions. Unless Mueller understands his role especially grandly, the report is likely not designed to fill the oversight shoes of Congress, or to assist the legislature’s role in the impeachment process. Yet unless the report is particularly spare in factual detail, that will not stop politicians and commentators for redeploying it for all sorts of other purposes.” (Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare)

mueller takes down trump Too many have been content to believe that it would have to be the Mueller Report, acting as a magic wand, that would finally stop the flow of corruption.

Instead, the reality is that all of the indictments, trials, and actual criminal records earned by advisors, his personal lawyer, and campaign manager, just to name a few, have to be served and serviced by the proper jurisdictions, advocates, and criminal lawyers charged with pursuing gross abuses of power and criminality. These are the people who will take down the bad guys, not Mueller

Mueller had his mandate, but, just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we have always had the power to ‘go home’ – we just kept waiting for a house to fall on the evil witch, rather than expecting our justice department surrogates to find their hearts, brains and courage, click together their legal heels, and start arresting these unusual suspects.

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And yet another of our priceless Toronto musical treasures, singer/songwriter Joe Hall, has left the building. Rest well, Joe.“ It is with profound sadness that I have to announce the death on Friday of my dear old friend and collaborator Joe Hall. We just brought out a new recording in December…in his opinion and mine, the best ever. He will be missed, he was unique. He was the only Canadian songwriter I would seriously compare to Leonard Cohen.” Tony Quarrington

From his website: ” He’s been compared to everyone from Frank Zappa to Tom Waits, but Joe Hall is a true original, whose sharp wit, insightful social commentary, and wildly entertaining stage presence made him one of Canada’s legendary folk rockers. A fixture of the 70s Queen St scene in Toronto with his band The Continental Drift, Joe has called Peterborough home for 25 years and continues to play, record and tour ”

The Manipulators and the Manipulated

Why must summer always go by so quickly? In two days it will be August, and then the rest of the year will race away before we can blink. I’m not ready to think about Christmas yet!

Politically, the planet just keeps getting hotter, as does the climate. As a kid, we looked forward to summer as a time when we could shrug off the shackles of school and teachers, kick back with our buddies and maybe find someone to snuggle with until it was time to “see you in September.”

But not this year. This year, no one is allowed to relax – ever! Even if you are not paying attention to the lout down south, Ontarians are dealing with a newly elected premier who is a wannabe tin pot dictator, hell-bent on giving Toronto a serious thrashing for not electing him mayor when they had the chance.

Whether you follow regional, national, or world politics, what’s going on is a constant demand for attention from political bad actors. It’s like a painful IV transfusion, filled with acid and bile, that drips poison into our veins and our minds, and turns us against each other. And these egotistical blowhards are taking our summer from us with their narcissistic need to be constantly in the spotlight.

But I have not come here to bury Caesar .. or Trump or Ford … no, I have my rifle sights set – oh yes, again! – on the media.

I won’t go into my rant on the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine again – I’ve done that twice, and it still hasn’t been put back into place. (It’s like the Supreme Court are not even listening to me! Bastards!)

No, what is stuck in my craw is what repealing the Fairness Doctrine has wrought. It’s not just the crazies at FOX and Friends who treat the news like reality is debatable. It’s also the ‘usual suspects’ in the mainstream media.

It’s making me crazy – and it’s making us stupid.

In One Year, MSNBC Covered Stormy Daniels 455 Times, War in Yemen 0

While we’d like to think that it’s the grownups in the room that present the news at CNN or MSNBC, the truth is that ALL of the channels, no matter how lofty the stated platform and mandate, have to pay the bills to keep the lights on. Like all entertainers, they’re playing to the audience.

The media is fixated on the news that is either sexy, or that can be spun as sexy. And that means that an awful lot of actual news never gets discussed.

At any given moment, there are events happening around the planet that impact millions. But, unless there is something interesting that North Americans can relate to, those moments will pass unnoticed. We need SEX! We need BLING! We need TRAGEDY!

Who would have ever thought we’d be so interested in the fates of the Thai soccer team? Why could we not stop watching the drama?

We are bears of little brain, it seems, with the attention spans of hummingbirds or goldfish. We constantly need to be tantalized, to have the glittery keys dangled before our eyes, or off we go, on to something that fires more neurons in our neural cortices.

There’s such a lot of spurious dealings going on in the States and in Canada, events that should be taking our full attention, and that, logically, should have citizens up in arms and marching in the streets … but that are instead being met with a collective sigh, and a sad little turning away from what is going on right before our eyes.

The kids in cages at the border; Kim Jung Un backing out of whatever the heck he and Trump had decided upon on nuclear disarmament; the U.S. president’s treasonous capitulation at Helsinki and whatever the heck he and Putin had decided upon for the fate of the planet; the consequences of Trump’s ridiculous trade war; Ford‘s assault on democracy in Ontario; all of these are stories that SHOULD be lighting real fires under our asses.

But … look at Stormy! Listen to Avenatti! Laugh at Giuliani’s double talking defenses! And whatever you do .. pay no attention to the man behind the curtain …

Most of us are only just beginning to realize how manipulated we have been by not only those in power, but the one’s behind the curtain, that have put them there, by a media that ensured that some politicians received more attention than others. This gambit almost guaranteed that theirs was the name on the ballot that seemed the most familiar, and therefore, possibly the most reputable.

But instead of getting out the torches and pitchforks to roast the bad guys, we’d rather shoot the messengers who try to draw our attention to the manipulation going on in the background. It seems that most of us would rather pretend not to know how very helpless we are in the face of those who make and break the rules for their own benefit. It’s just so much more convenient and easier to go along with the crowd.

In the United States, which has spent the last two years dealing with an overt corruption and greed beyond their wildest dreams, we have seen an emergence of new, democratic voices, and there is hope that a midterm Blue Wave will overturn the stranglehold that the Trump administration has had on democracy to date.

With any luck, America may be able to place new and driven people, brimming with innovative ideas, into the White House. It would be good to see a move toward term limits as well, to ensure that elected representatives are truly representative of their constituencies. It’s time to turf out politicians who spend their time in office primarily in the getting, consolidation, and keeping of their power, rather than in working for the people who elected them.

Canada will undergo it’s own trial by fire in the next few years, with the election of Doug Ford. We can only hope that we’ve learned, from watching the rampant abuse of power down South, that giving power to bullies only encourages apathy and a destructive divisiveness in our most precious resource – our people.

Thinking About Thinking

Ain’t I a wonder, and ain’t you a wonder too!

Or so we’ve been led to believe, by all of our ‘likes’ and ‘loves’ on social media, which is where we go to show off our funny, pretty, and intelligent sides. It’s where we go to get our ‘strokes’ of approval, to find out who’s doing what, and it’s where some of us go to air our opinions and beliefs, and to challenge the opinions and beliefs of others.

“(As of August 2017) For the first time in the Pew Research Center’s surveys, more than half (55%) of Americans ages 50 or older report getting news on social media sites. That is 10 percentage points higher than the 45% who said so in 2016. Those under 50, meanwhile, remain more likely than their elders to get news from these sites (78% do, unchanged from 2016).”

There really isn’t anyone moderating what we say on Facebook. Oh, the book of face would have you believe that, like McDonalds, “we do it all for you,” but anyone who’s been slapped with a three day suspension for uploading a picture of a woman breastfeeding would disagree. No one seems to really know what FB will decide is pornographic or unseemly. Even Facebook itself is unable to provide a hard and fast policy, since it changes with whatever the loudest voices declare to be currently correct.

And Facebook’s acceptance of Russian payment for the placement of ads that ultimately swayed voters in the last election – well, that’s for the courts to decide, but I’d say that might be considered a Russky Bridge too far.

What is indisputably true, in the world of social media where reputations can be made or destroyed in the space of a tweet, is that there aren’t many grown ups in the room.

And the barrier that might have once existed between terrestrial media and internet social media is gossamer fine.

Because it’s that kind of world, now, where the highest rated radio and TV shows are filled with loud, opinionated, and often grossly under informed ranters who toss the red meat of controversy to the most rabid of listeners who will wait, slavishly, by their phones, in order to add their own voice to the cacophony, and be part of the fun. It’s a world where a reality TV host gets to be president. It’s Idiocracy.

How did we get here? Well, I’d say the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) played a very large role in this slide into mis and disinformation. Created in 1939 to license and renew the license of broadcast stations, the FCC did not originally have the power to censor what was aired. Until the 1950’s, most people got the bulk of their information from radio, and news was sold strictly as news, not entertainment. However, then as now, radio stations needed advertisers to keep in business, and the Commission worried that station owners would be influenced by their advertisers, and by what the conservative owners might decide to pass off as truth.

And so, the Mayflower Doctrine was put into place by then FCC chairman Larry Fly, “fearing a further commercialized, conservative-biased and corporate dominated medium.” The Doctrine declared that broadcasters have “an obligation to allot a reasonable amount of time to treatment of controversial issues and that they have an affirmative duty to seek, to provide representative expression of all responsible shades of opinion.”

The Mayflower Doctrine gave way to the Fairness Doctrine in 1949.
“It established two forms of regulation on broadcasters: to provide adequate coverage of public issues, and to ensure that coverage fairly represented opposing views. The second rule required broadcasters to provide reply time to issue-oriented citizens. Broadcasters could therefore trigger Fairness Doctrine complaints without editorializing. The commission required neither of the Fairness Doctrine’s obligations before 1949.” (wiki)

But even that modicum of control was removed in 1989, ushering in a whole new way of presenting information. No longer did radio or TV have to be held to truth – instead, it became permissible for broadcasters to present, higgledy piggledy, views that directly benefited their paid advertisers and corporate owners. it was the beginning of ‘fake news,’ paving the way for owners like Rupert Murdoch to found stations based upon the rantings of radio and TV shock jocks, those highly emotional if often low informed and biased talk show hosts ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

While this sort of blathering can be very entertaining, and kickstart the hearts of those who either lack their own opinions or love to air their ideas and conspiracy beliefs, it really didn’t do much good for those people who are easily led to often ill informed and hard right theories.

The thing about life is that most of us come to our ideas through our very limited experiences. And yet somehow we believe that our conclusions on goings on outside of our own personal spheres are as valid as those of the people who have dedicated their lives to understanding those events.

Thinking like that is naive, and is what led to America electing one of the most incompetent presidents of their history. Believing that success in business equates to success in government is an enormous lie of epic proportions and horrifically sad consequences. The very qualities that comprise ruthless thinking and lead to success in business are the direct antitheses of the qualities necessary for a wise, compassionate, and humane leader able to put the needs of the Nation before his own.

Why is it so hard for most of us to realize that we don’t have all the answers? To understand that there are people out there who are smarter than us, or who have more information about a topic, or maybe just have that intuitive flash of brilliance that allows them to weigh up an issue, thoughtfully and with ALL of the data considered, and then come up with a solution that actually works for all involved, something that we’ve somehow missed, no matter how long and hard we’ve worried the question?

Why is it so hard to understand that there are very few of us capable of holding every aspect of a quandary in perfect balance for long enough to solve the equation?

Time and again I have seen businesses and governments weigh up a problem with all of their combined brainpower .. and still come up empty. It’s truly infuriating for all of us – the entity trying and failing to find a solution, and those impacted by their lack of a properly considered conclusion in which all of the players needs are considered.

Fr’instance. In British Columbia, homelessness and drug addiction are a crushing burden to those who suffer from these issues. Trying to help and control the realities of how these problems impact upon not just those who suffer, but those who live within a society that bears the financial and legal brunt of these issues, is something that the BC government and policing agencies have to deal with. At this point, a tangle of laws, rights, and ugly reality have created an impasse. There’ seems to be no answer to this question. The result is an uneasy standoff, that benefits and pleases no one.

I don’t have the answer. But somewhere out there, someone does. He or she just hasn’t been asked the right question.

Corporate and political entities are not the only ones that often have a smug belief that they are the only ones with the answers.

Take the subject of phasing out oil powered vehicles vs electrically powered vehicles. Pretty much every driver who is of a certain age has little belief that the demise of fuel will happen any time soon. And yet, the Chinese government is following in the footsteps of countries like India, France, Britain, and Norway, which have already announced plans to ditch gas and diesel cars in favour of cleaner vehicles in the coming years.

I’ve heard all of the arguments, and the cries that trucks and other heavy vehicles will never be able to be replaced by electric or electrified vehicles, for at least the next fifty years.

But it IS gonna happen, and much sooner than those who picture electric vehicles being powered by a trunk full of double AA batteries can conceive. Barring a nuclear holocaust, which would put paid to pretty much all of civilization, electric vehicles will be the only new vehicles manufactured in many countries, as soon as 2021.

When the Fairness Doctrine was tossed aside as though the citizens of 1989 were far more intelligent and civilized than the yokels who’d laboured under these doctrines for the previous fifty years, we ushered in a time when any fool with a platform and a theory could control large groups of people, without any constraints, be they of decency or truth, covering their speech.

The internet and the ubiquitous social media furthered the range of those loud voices, and multiplied the numbers of potential followers their words could reach.

But without any control, or any way to establish rules of argument and debate, the loudest voices tend to be the ones most likely to resort to schoolyard bullying tactics, like name calling, the distortion of truth, and outright lies being repeated until the lies themselves are woven into the fabric of society.

Despite the miracle of the internet allowing each of us to research, in real time, any questionable information presented to us by even the loudest and most authoritative voices, the demand that truth be spoken is often overridden by the Bully Pulpit of those in power.

I’m pretty sure that this is not where the inventors of broadcast media hoped that we’d arrive.

But it is the situation in which we now find ourselves drowning.

The 24 News Cycle Will Kill You

My name is Roxanne and I am a political news junkie. There. I’ve said it. And it’s the truth.

The 24 hour news cycle is like heroin – it’s a daily hit. At first you’re just chipping. You walk by the TV set and catch the end of some political atrocity that the talking heads are dicing into increasingly small, indigestible bits, and you sniff at the silliness. Maybe you suck your teeth at some inanity uttered by an obviously biased and paid hack.

But the next time you pass that same TV, you realize you’re beginning to recognize the lead characters in this drama, those with the weird names like Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper. Before you know it, you’re wondering when Mika and Joe Scarborough will set a date for their wedding, and you’re even starting to know the bit players.

As you sink deeper into the drama that political news has become, your ‘event TV‘ viewing starts to largely consist of the big names, like Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell, and Sunday is definitely broken into a Face The Nation morning and a Last Week with John Oliver night.

Comic relief soon consists only of the monologues from the late night hosts riding the Orange Wave; Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. And Samantha Bee is your new girlcrush.

Nothing else can hold your attention. Your regularly scheduled relaxation television viewing has been supplanted by the need to be constantly on guard and aware of what the politicians are trying to slide past the people. Your love/hate relationship with current events has you so tied up in knots that you’d throw your television out the window, but then you wouldn’t be able to punch the screen!

Your background music now consists of CNNLive, and listening to the broadcasted testimony of Jeff Sessions, and the hours of posturing that follow as the anchors play good cop/back cop trying to uncover what just happened … and you realize …

you’re in deep. No longer content with news clips from as long as a week ago, nope, last week can’t give the hit of a clip from the night before .. or the hour before.

You’re as addicted as any junkie jonesing for a fix. You’re hooked on news, man, shucking and jiving and slapping your arm to pop up a vein.

The intensity of the last few months has left many breathless – the constant tweeting, the ridiculous and unenforceable edicts, the Executive Orders carving great swaths of America into more caviar for the 1% while taking the very bread out of the mouths of children – our noses are being constantly rubbed into the most shameless and flagrant abuse of power seen on our shores, in our lifetime.

We have front row tickets to the unraveling of democracy. You can look away, but it’s like that car crash on the highway … you know you’re gonna slow down and take a peek at the carnage, just like every other looky loo.

CNN, FOX, MSNBC, Headline News and all the little brother and sister cable and internet networks know that they have a willing and captive audience slavering for that next news hit. And they have 24 hours of airwaves to fill. When the cravings kick in, it’s a match made in hell.

You want to hear more, more, more – but there’s a danger in this addiction. Networks have their own politics, and trying to keep viewers tuning in is their quest. Regardless of how ‘fair and balanced’ these behemoths purport to be, their real bias is to finding what angle will bring in the most viewers, and pump in those yummy advertising dollars. Rachel Maddow may love her cheap blazers, but the execs are wearing much more expensive apparel, and that’s just the way they like it.

While it is indeed wonderful to have this banquet of 24/7 information at our fingertips, there’s a real risk in letting the drip drip drip of what can be mere speculation and innuendo turn us into armchair quarterbacks, pseudo-intellectuals, prisoners of little bubble fortresses where all within think alike and talk alike, who can neither hear nor understand those in all the other bubble fortresses who don’t think and talk exactly like us.

The divisiveness that has become our new and violent normal has it’s seeds in the lengths networks will go to, to shape their viewers points of view.

The 24 hour news cycle presumes that every issue has only two sides to it, and only one side is right. Of course, that’s neither true nor tenable. You are allowed, and even encouraged, as part of your civic duty, to understand the issues that preoccupy your nation and government. A news network, supposedly neutral, does not have the right to impose it’s own morality and biases upon it’s viewers. Your choice of network should not also be the source of your ethics and morality.

And yet – the networks often do exactly that. The networks act as the ‘dealers’ selling hits of outrage to the news junkies.

In the hands of the partisan network, the viewer learns little hard information, nor is there much depth to any argument. The ‘panels,’ made up of ‘experts’ chosen to imply that all sides of an issue are covered, are often little more than a group of people paid to whip up alarm, outrage, and frenzied fear.

And yes – that’s true of both the right and the left leaning media.

Yes, we need to be aware of the issues of the day, in our own country and in those countries where decisions made by their leadership can have an impact on the safety and governance of our own.

But I think it’s time to sort out the wheat from the chaff; the journalism from the junk food. Time to reward the solid writers and broadcasters who attempt, within their network, to work to actual fair and balanced standards. Time to turn the channel from those who depend on an atmosphere of fear and uncertainly, to those measured voices who seek to inform and explain what many of us may know instinctively, but have been counseled to ignore by those who profit from this destabilized and increasingly fractured populace.

But this is all too much. It’s deadly. We’ve go to get off this treadmill of constant political madness. We have to ignore the tweets and calls to action that are destabilizing not only America, but most of the world.

In the past, addiction was a personal thing.. being hooked on this political madness hurts too many people around us. I gotta stop letting this run my mind and my life.

I have to get a grip on this news addiction. I’ve gotta get off this apple sauce. It won’t be easy, but I’m going to have to go cold turkey, and stay off the politics needle until there’s something I can actually do to impact the injustices I condemn.

Ignorance is only bliss for the ignorant. A little, biased, knowledge can be a dangerous thing. And turning the people against each other only profits those who market civil unrest and war.

Resist. But resist wisely, and from a place of common ground and a desire to work together, not tear each other apart.

Are You For Real?

We’re in ‘the teens’ of the 2000s, but let’s not wait for 2020 to get some hindsight. We’re getting weirder, folks, weirder and less able to distinguish truth from lies, and fact from fiction. Could a Donald Trump, 100% fact free, have ever gotten a toe hold on an American presidential race in any other way or time?

Selective narrative, anecdotal evidence, weasel words, temporizing, fatuous politispeak, points that are true out of context or cunningly reframed to suit the narrative, the pedestaling of personal opinion over scientific fact … you’re soaking in it.

Exhibit A: THAT dress. A woman posted a washed-out photograph of a dress on Tumblr, sparking a flurry of 10 million tweets within one week. The picture and argument made its way around the world – was the dress blue and black, or was it white and gold? Why could we not believe our own eyes?

“A 2015 scientific study with 1,400 respondents found that 57% saw the dress as blue and black, 30% as white and gold and about 10% as blue and brown, while approximately 10% could switch between any of the colour combinations. A small number saw it as blue and gold. Women and older people disproportionately saw the dress as white and gold. The scientists further found that if the dress was shown in artificial yellow-coloured lighting almost all respondents saw the dress as blue and black, while they saw it as white and gold if the simulated lighting had a blue bias.” (Wikipedia.com)

2015 was a year where people would fight to the death over matters big and small. In a time when it is possible to discover nearly anything about anyone, misinformation ruled and our minds reeled.

Respected NBC news anchor Brian Williams admitted to lying about an event he claimed to have been a part of during the Iraq War, and was suspended without pay from Nightly News for “misrepresenting.” Fair enough – who hasn’t beefed up an old story to make yourself look better? We tsk-tsked, but really … we didn’t care.

But when Rachel Dolezal was outed for “misrepresenting” herself as a person of colour – boy did we care, even if we couldn’t really understand why she would choose to do so. Most confused were those who have actually spent their lives dealing with being born black in America. For them, there was no possibility of simply claiming to be white, for whatever reason. And yet, Dolezal, born white, lived as though born black, and became a leader of her local chapter of the NAACP. Was this cultural appropriation or a woman dealing with a severe mental issue? We cared, and we argued.

Bruce Jenner transitioned into Caitlyn Jenner, and became a cover girl and representative for an entire group of people many weren’t even aware existed. What was going on, we wondered? Was nothing as it appeared?

In the summer, pro-life activists claimed to have a video that showed a Planned Parenthood executive negotiating a price for fetal tissue, The footage was recorded secretly during a lunch meeting on July 25, 2014, between Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, and two people posing as employees of a company looking to procure fetal tissue for research purposes. The video, as released, was heavily edited to cut out Nucatola repeatedly saying its clinics wanted to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research.

“The full video shows that after Nucatola mentions the $30 to $100, she describes how those amounts would be reimbursement for expenses related to handling and transportation of the tissues. Nucatola talks about “space issues” and whether shipping would be involved.” (http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/unspinning-the-planned-parenthood-video/)

At least three presidential candidates chose to misunderstand the issue, and to pander to their religious right bases. Despite the facts being “misrepresented,” Rand Paul claimed “… a video showing [Planned Parenthood]’s top doctor describing how she performs late-term abortions to sell body parts for profit!” and Carly Fiorina spat, “This isn’t about “choice.” It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment.” Carly doubled down further, claiming to have watched a video, which exists only in her own inflamed mind, of a Planned Parenthood doctor saying they must harvest the brain of a fully formed fetus.

And that all led to a confrontation in September as Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a pro-life supporter seeking to defund Planned Parenthood, produced an ‘official’ chart indicating that Planned Parenthood performed more abortions than “life-saving procedures” in 2013. In actuality, the chart was created by Americans United for Life, which is an anti-abortion group. Congress was willing to shut down the government rather than continue to fund Planned Parenthood, with little in the way of facts, but much in the way of righteous indignation.

PolitiFact, who has been documenting Donald Trump’s statements on their Truth-O-Meter, had little difficulty in bestowing the Politifact Lie of The Year award upon him. 76 percent of his pronunciations were Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire – a record no other politician could match. And yet his followers believe he’s authentic, a straight-talker, more truthful, and less scripted than traditional politicians.

Really? Like when Trump said that there were 6 million people over the age of 112, and that’s what was dragging down America’s social security?

Even Bill O’Reilly of Fox News – no stranger to “misrepresenting” himself, challenged Trump’s tweet of inaccurate murder rates. “Whites killed by whites — 16%. Whites killed by blacks — 81%,” said an image he shared on Twitter. FACT: Most people are killed by someone they know, and someone of the same race. The correct number for whites killed by whites was 82 percent in 2014, while the number of whites killed by blacks was 15 percent.”

But Trump responded by admitting that being accurate wasn’t the point: “Hey, Bill, Bill, am I gonna check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people … @RealDonaldTrump, by the way.”

Trump’s level of crazy has let other presidential candidates craziness slip by almost unnoticed. Well, except for Ben Carson, who, as a rabid Seventh Day Adventist, has theories that go completely against accepted scientific fact. Despite the mummies found within the pyramids of Egypt, Ben thinks the structures were actually large temples of grain. “I think that’s a plausible explanation to how they got built…I happen to believe a lot of things that you might not believe because I believe in the Bible.”

And you should believe him, because apparently he and Jesus have regular spa days together.

And in one of the most Machiavellian misuses of economic austerity, Gov Rick Snyder of Michigan poisoned an entire community in an effort to save money. By switching the Flint water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River without adequately treating the water, the water pipes began to shed lead into the drinking water. Within months, the proportion of infants and children with above-average levels of lead doubled, prompting the state to declare a State of Emergency. From filmmaker Michael Moore: “To poison all the children in an historic American city is no small feat. Even international terrorist organizations haven’t figured out yet how to do something on a magnitude like this.”

So it probably shouldn’t come as such a surprise that people are battling each other, on social and mass media, and defending their own strong opinions, even if their opinions would seem to be contrary to accepted fact, or actually just pulled out of the ether of their own confused rage and fear. “Fact” has been played with so fast and loose that what we believe today might be shoved under the bus tomorrow.

As John Lennon wrote, when you’ve stopped being able to believe in anything … “I just believe in me.”

—–

Motorhead’s Lemmy – the man, the myth, the legend. One of the very few metal frontmen iconic enough to be known by only one name. Gone December 28, 2015, at the age of 70.

“Who’d win in a wrestling match, Lemmy or God? Trick question – Lemmy IS God.” (Airheads)

Here are two videos that bookend his musical life. Waaaaay back in 1964, Lemmy played guitar for Rev Black and The Rockin’ Vicars, a name then abbreviated to The Rockin’ Vicars, but in order to have a chance to get more gigs or even a record contract, they changed their name to “Rockin’ Vickers.”

This cover of Ray Davies’ “Dandy,” a song made popular by Herman’s Hermits, was released in 1966.

And this Finnish milk commercial, shot just a month before his death at the age of 70, was released this week. As the ad company said, “This is offered in celebration of the life of a lovely, exceptional man – a man who celebrated life so vibrantly himself. We were first shooting a remake of an iconic Finnish milk ad. The tone of this ad that was shot a month ago was changed to make it a heartfelt tribute, however modest. A take that came late in the shoot was selected – one of Lemmy’s brilliant improv moments that was never in the script. This was our magical encounter with a great man – and we’re honoured to share it with the world. Thank you, Lemmy.”

originally published as bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/roxanne-tellier-are-you-for-real/

The Politics of Terror

“The world is a dangerous place and, as most brutally demonstrated by last October’s attacks in Ottawa and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Canada is not immune to the threat of terrorism.”

Or so Prime Minister Stephen Harper decreed on January 30^th, flanked by Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Steven Blaney, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and Julian Fantino, Associate Minister of National Defence, and the largest personal protective detail in the history of Canada.

It would seem that Harper sees himself as a ‘war-time’ leader, who, in the run up to the next election, wants to project a manly, statesmanlike image. While cultivating a culture of fear, he is appealing to those who traditionally will cling to the political status quo in times of unrest.

And in one swell foop, the man who spent the Ottawa siege in a closet ramped up the anxiety and fear of a nation, while simultaneously putting into place measures that many feel will result in further loss of civil liberties and reduction of freedoms.

By no means am I minimalizing the two horrible attacks . They were horrific, and shocking to Canadians who rightfully believe themselves to be a part of the world’s peace keepers. But these attacks increasingly seem to have been the acts of self-radicalized, troubled and confused young men, with no evidence connecting them to ISIS. Harper’s proposal sounds less like a desire to protect the nation, and more like the fear mongering of a politician desperate to keep his seat in power.

So much for his vaunted and pious defense of Canada’s Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Speech after the recent Charlie Hebdo attack in France. Our Freedoms were already considered under attack, based on his own government’s track record of secrecy, muzzling, sneaky omnibus bills, a disdain for democratic Parliamentary rules, and the misleading of Parliament.

Ottawa Citizen reporter Ian MacLeod called the proposal “the most dramatic package of new laws since the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001.” But .. hang on … who flew into our towers? Three misguided fools in Canada took it upon themselves to mirror the acts of other misguided fools in the Middle East, whom we’ve done nothing but publicize in the media. The same media that attempts to inflame viewers by ramping up anxiety about events in other parts of the world in hopes of getting higher ratings, and very often has the issues completely wrong.

Ironically, terrorism is most effective when it’s target reacts disproportionately to fear. Perhaps those sweeping powers would be better used in policing how media is actually romanticizing terrorism, and making it seem glamorous to impressionable and disenfranchised people who believe they have no voice or impact upon their own democratic governments. There’s a huge difference between planned, organized and directed attacks (terrorism) and a misguided fool whipped up by web sites designed to muster support for a cause.

No matter how often the Conservatives tell us that the attacker of Ottawa’s Parliament was linked to a terrorist network, we’ve still not seen follow up information, or the RCMP background video we are told contains proof of such a link. It’s the politics of fear and terror.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was right when he questioned why Harper is proposing new legislation with far reaching consequences without so much as consulting with opposition parties. Canadian rights, already being pecked away by post-9/11 laws, look to be even more constrained under a granting of extraordinary power to Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), with a mandate to “investigate and disrupt” terrorist plots. Canada’s police services will be able to go after online terrorist propaganda.

The line between being branded as an activist or a terrorist is already grey. With these proposals, that line could be even more abused than it currently is, and in fact, simply obliterated. Could a government with a long list of enemies, including labour and environmental movements, simply capitalize upon already existing powers such as restricting the right to remain silent, laws allowing CSIS to spy on Canadians overseas, detainment without charges, and arrest without warrants?

In 2012, Joe Oliver, then Minister of Natural Resources, wrote an open letter to Canadians on the government’s commitment to the diversification of energy resources (i.e. the Northern Gateway, Alberta’s Tar Sands.) In it, he said “environmental and other radical groups threaten to highjack our regulatory system to achieve their radical and ideological agenda.” He claimed that these ‘radicals’ were employing American tactics to “sue everyone and anyone to delay the project,” and that ‘slow, complex, and cumbersome regulatory processes’ were slowing down the government’s ability to push ahead their own unilateral decisions and agenda.

Those ‘radical’ environmentalists were concerned about 50 square miles of tailing ponds full of toxic chemicals, supposedly lined but actually leaking at the rate of 3 million gallons per day. (Pembina Institute.) Cancer rates are 100 times the norm for the First Nations living on the Athabaska River. Over 80% of BC residents have said NO to oil tankers on their coast, and coastal First Nations have declared a ban under their traditional laws. Perhaps these are small concerns to Mr. Oliver, but they are of vital importance to those who actually live in the area.

These ‘radical’ environmentalists could now potentially be charged with terrorism.

(In March, 2014, Mr. Oliver was appointed Minister of Finance. Yes, the same Joe Oliver who recently had to delay our next budget, due to the unexpected downturn in the price of oil. The government had banked on a big payoff on the pipeline, but instead, low oil prices are going to cost provinces nearly $10-billion in lost royalties and tax revenue, and see the government lose $4.3 billion in expected revenues. )

Could there be a better time for the government to ramp up fear and politicize terror?

When the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001 was due to expire, the Tories’ Combatting Terrorism Act of 2013 reinstated them, with yet more power, and this new legislation would continue to expand on an overbearing and intrusive presence by government controlled security forces , bringing us ever closer to becoming a surveillance state.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that it’s important “we maintain a proper perspective,” on ISIS, and that they are not “an existential threat to the United States or the world order.” He added that the U.S. needs to see the threat for what it is and respond to it in a way that doesn’t undermine American values.

“It means that we don’t approach this with a strategy of sending out occupying armies and playing whack-a-mole wherever a terrorist group appears, because that drains our economic strength and it puts enormous burdens on our military,” he said.

Contrast this with Harper’s “Stand Your Ground” stance on Canada’s presence in Iraq. As the opposition questioned if Canada was actually at war with Iraq, and what “advise and assist” actually mean to the Canadian soldiers “accompanying” Iraqi troops fighting against Islamic State soldiers, Harper said,

“Let me be clear. This is a robust mission. We’re there to make those guys effective so they can take on the Islamic State and deal with them and if those guys fire at us, we’re going to fire back and we’re going to kill them, just like our guys did.”

Look – I get it. We’re all scared. We’re afraid of ISIS and Ebola, of extreme weather and IEDs, of Monsanto and dirty bombs and oh my lawdy, what’s next! There’s too much crime, we’re told, and draconian systems of justice continue to be put into place at enormous cost, when in fact, crime rates are falling. While some American states legalize marijuana, those in opposition continue to pump out propaganda against pot, and institutionalizing people where the substance has not yet been legalized.

The truth is, “we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence,” as Stephen Pinker concluded in his 2012 book The Better Angels of Human Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

Terrorism peaked worldwide in the mid-1980s, and in North America around 1970. If you live in Canada or the United States your chances of being killed by terrorism are almost zero. We’ve been sold an exaggerated sense of danger about conflicts and events in other countries, which has allowed those in power to divide and conquer it’s people, alienate North America from war torn nations, engage in wars that profit only those in the military trade, and snip away at Canadians civil liberties, eroding our freedoms.

There are those who will say, “What do I care? I’m not a terrorist! Go get the bad guys!” Those people should perhaps have a chat with the innocent citizens caught up in the police actions taken against the G-20 demonstrators in 2010. More than 20,000 police, military, and security personnel were involved in policing the protests, which at its largest numbered 10,000 protestors. Over a thousand arrests were made, making it the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. There were no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ dispensations; in fact, Toronto Police and the Integrated Security Unit (ISU) of the summit were heavily criticized for brutality during the arrests.

You cannot hermetically seal a democratic society to protect it from violence; doing so actually reduces democracy. Despite the self-inflicted threat fear that Harper is trying to sell us, it’s our own government limiting our rights, not jihadists.

Use Your INSIDE Voice, Please!

I have a few well-meaning friends who think that I would be just great if I would only listen and agree with their viewpoints, and the people who share their beliefs. I’m always willing to listen to well-reasoned arguments – that’s how we learn and grow – but I have a real problem with some of the people who feel the way to reason is through shouting down other voices.

The loudest voice in the room is not necessarily the most right – but it is always the rudest.

I can’t watch Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly, for instance, ‘debate’ with any of his dissenters. Not only is his belligerence insulting to those he is supposedly giving a public forum, but it’s unseemly, as it is actually his show, run by him and those who are paid to make sure O’Reilly is heard. Perhaps the most telling thing about O’Reilly’s interviews – which he inevitably claims to have won – are the people he and his network will NOT allow on “The O’Reilly Factor,” for fear that, even with Bill’s louder voice, they will actually show O’Reilly’s opinions up for the smug, over-bearing and self-entitled views they actually are.

In this article, O’Reilly is once again shown as a master manipulator of his own image.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/01/21/bill-oreilly-lies-about-his-role-pushing-debunk/202207

“O’REILLY: All right, we got a minute. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, said she’s going to sue Fox News for reporting on so-called no-go zones in Paris. They’re dominated by Muslims and police hesitate to go in there — at least that has been the reportage in some places. I didn’t have anything to do with this. But I will point out that the mayor is a socialist.”

I’ve become rather inured to O’Reilly’s entitlement and self-satisfaction, but I have to admit, this next clip made me laugh.The man is so convinced of his own self-worth that he played this video on his show, and ‘joked’ that he should have taken top place. Maybe he and Nancy Grace can arm wrestle for the spot.

Rush Limbaugh has been an American commentator since 1984, mercilessly criticizing what he considers a liberal bias in politics and policies on main stream media. He’s also one of the highest paid talking heads in the U.S. media. A staunch, ultra-conservative Republican, he’s been praised by President Ronald Reagan (1992,) has won numerous awards, including the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence, and has even been named the 2014 Author of the Year for his book Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans by The Children’s Book Council.

He also had this book written about him, which hit #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list in 1996. “Franken has said that he chose to make the book’s title an ad hominen attack as “an ironic comment on the fact that Rush makes ad hominem attacks all the time.”” (Wikipedia.org)

And yet – The Rush Limbaugh Program is the highest-rated talk radio show in the United States. Only Howard Stern’s “Howard 100” show, netting a “cume” of 1.2 million listeners, comes close. On Limbaugh’s program, “For three hours every day, the program airs live and consists primarily of Limbaugh’s monologues, based on the news of the day, interspersed with parody ads, phone calls from listeners and a variety of running comedy bits (some live, some taped). Limbaugh also does live commercials during the show for sponsors. He sometimes promotes his own products, such as his political newsletter, The Limbaugh Letter. Occasionally, Limbaugh features guests, such as a politician or fellow commentator. A toll-free telephone number is announced for incoming calls from listeners. However, Limbaugh generally takes far fewer calls per show than most other national talk radio programs. (wiki.org)

His fans, known as “Ditto-heads,” are legion; his estimated listeners are believed to be more than 13 million per week. His opinions are deliberately controversial, and often racist or sexist. Callers who dissent receive the “Caller abortion” treatment. (Limbaugh’s term for disconnecting an unwanted caller, accompanied by the sound effects of screams, a vacuum cleaner and a toilet flushing) I guess that’s how you get the big money.

Talk Radio is big in Canada as well. But our talk radio tends to be confined to local areas, and be more locally focused. The two largest talk radio networks in Canada are CBC’s Radio One and the French language Premiere Chaine. However, we, too have our share of shouty men with fixed opinions.

On some of the call in shows, the host first reads a bit of current news, gives his opinion on the subject, and then opens the phone lines. Callers are screened, and, while our dissenters may be treated a little less rudely, other sides of an issue are rarely given much time. Over the course of the next several hours, callers who agree with the host grind down on the day’s subject, adding their own experiences, which are usually negative.

The problem with this is that, with no dissenting voices, it becomes a morass of “that’s terrible!” “I know, right? And it happened to me too … and even worse!” and several hours later you have a great number of people who have been stirred up about some tiny issue, and have nowhere to relieve their mental tension. It’s an exercise in negativity and a futile windup of people who were likely just having a normal day, until they were dragged into a group of people who had an axe to grind and bad experiences to share.

The listener has become part of the show; unhappy, angry, tense, their stomachs knotted … this can’t end well.

In a true dialogue, people talk rationally, and explain why they feel the way they do. Their passion does not have to be exemplified by a louder, dominating voice, because truth will eventually out, and ring truer than lies. The other person may not hear or accept your truth, but screaming your truth won’t affect how the other person believes. It just adds to a morass of anger, and a division of people.

We have freedom of speech in Canada, and that, we rightfully defend. Our talk show hosts, just like the ones in the United States, have the right to say what they believe, and the technology to let listeners agree with their perspective.

I’m just asking that they try and keep their voices down so that I can hear what everyone is saying .. . not just the one’s with an agenda already in place, in a forum where those who disagree are summarily dismissed before their own freedom of speech can be exercised.