Category Archives: Putin

Blog, Politics, Putin, Trump

Not My President

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The BBC is reporting that Trump and Putin will be talking about “dividing up certain assets” in regard to Ukraine, without any input from the Ukrainians.

This is beyond belief. How long will it be before all of America realizes just how utterly incompetent DJT truly is as he stumbles forward with his attempt at ending the war Russia started with its invasion of Crimea in 2014, while Elon Musk continues running rampant through the federal government, gutting institutions, ending lives and destroying careers with the stated goal of putting and end to Social Security. A move that will financially cripple millions of our senior citizens.

Musk, is unelected, an immigrant from South Africa. It’s doubtful he has an adequate understanding of our system, much less our traditions, many of which were purchased and then preserved with the blood of our friends and ancestors. Who is he to run roughshod over our institutions, many of which have made the United States, the envy of so much of the world?

For whatever problems we may have, we are still that “Shining city on a hill” that President Reagan, spoke of.

Don’t buy into Trump’s baseless argument that the United States is a mess. We were fine, with a sound and stable economy, able to work through our differences with no threat to the Republic until he came along, supported by Vladimir Putin at the polls and with Saudi money being funneled directly into his family while he promoted Roy Cohen’s immoral philosophy of striking back twice as hard, even when you’re in the wrong.

The truth, is that Donald J. Trump, has a history. Whatever he gets his hands on, falls into ruin. And he now has his hands all over the United States. Trump, moves ahead with the bravado of a monarch, suggesting the annexation of Greenland and Canada. An American dictator, ignoring the orders of federal courts, our very constitutional guarantees, as he thumbs his nose at our legal traditions, the rule of law that gives our system its balance, guaranteeing our liberty.

This is madness. Much of America, was distracted by the false prophecy of fear and hate. It’s time to wake up. We must reclaim our true allies on the world stage and demand a return to the rule of law in America, holding all accountable, including the Chief Executive and those justices of the Supreme Court, who may have been unduly influenced by personal gain. The high court’s past misjudgements can be corrected by the Congress and the Court, acting together as co-equal branches.

Both Republicans and Democrats should be screaming for Trump’s removal from office under the authority of the 25th Amendment before he destroys the United States. Doing any less is to promote the destruction of all we hold dear. The death of our very liberty. The death of the American ideal.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Trump

A Nod To Our National Nausea

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Don’t be surprised if you feel a little nauseous. This is what happens when your plane is in a tailspin with Mr. Magoo, in the cockpit. Or you see some idiot with a chainsaw jumping around on a stage while other idiots cheer him on.

What’s happening to the country is truly sickening.

A peculiar feature of our system is that so many of us are apparently more concerned with how much we’ll make this year as opposed to worries over whether our country will survive Trump, Musk and Putin.

How long will it take the Republican Party, or what’s left of it, to wake up to this attempted destruction of the American Republic?

Blog, Politics, Putin, Trump

The New Russian/American Alliance

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When we were growing up we were criticized for doing stupid things. We were told “you better go and take a smart pill or you won’t be able to get into college.” It worked, I think, as many of us tried harder to develop our minds as well as our bodies. And a bunch of us, did get into college.

Then it happened. Somewhere in the 80’s, the country began celebrating ignorance and chastising higher learning as being “elitist.” The country started glorifying commonality and demeaning higher learning for anything other than an MBA. Diplomacy was displaced by a bigger and badder war machine as we adopted “Greed is good” as our national mantra.

What was left of any spiritual ethos we might have had was beaten bloody and left lying on the floor.

Now, here we all are. Half the country has no reading comprehension and the only thing anybody can agree on is football. A perfect satellite for Putin and his Russian machine as the United States turns it back on its allies in favor of dictators, oil rich kingdoms and terrorists.

The bad guys are no longer at the gate, they have kicked down the front door and made a home for themselves in the Oval Office. They are standing the American ideal on its head and probably laughing about it while the Republican Party, the only ones left with the power to put our house back in order, cower in a dark corner of some basement room at the Capitol.

This current Republican Party gives new meaning to the term political cowardice, as they watch the country die from a thousand cuts with influence being purchased through dark money courtesy of a totally politicized Supreme Court.

It may be too late to hope that people will develop critical thinking. Instead we’re losing the Dept. of Education, denying Science and hoping the Oligarchy, our new rulers that are slowly tearing apart our American Democracy, will be kind to us.

The hotline to the Kremlin, installed years ago to keep the peace in an increasingly dangerous world, is undoubtedly coming in handy to receive instructions from Vladimir Putin, advising Trump how and when to act, so that we the sheeple will continue behaving according to plan, making as little trouble as possible as they continue laying waste to our institutions.

You didn’t really think Donald J. Trump was smart enough to come up with all this stuff on his own, did you?

Blog, Putin, Trump, Violence

Why More Is Never Enough

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Years ago, I had a professor in a humanities course at the University of Minnesota, who taught us an interesting premise. One that’s stuck with me. Maybe because the professor was a body builder who rode a Harley. Very imposing for an academic. Smart guy, too.

“Every man, wants to be a god.” That’s what he told us. I can’t remember who originally came up with it, but it’s pretty good. Especially in light of all that’s happening in our current state of madness.

Think about those in control and those who seek control. And how much of it they actually want.

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, contributed more than a quarter-billion dollars to the Trump campaign, or so says the New York Times. But why? Why would anybody give that much money to an egomaniac with the attention span of a flea? Because he wants to be a god, that’s why.

It’s not enough for Musk to be uber-wealthy, so wealthy that his family will enjoy “generational wealth” for centuries to come. No, he wants it all for himself, or as much as possible, and he wants it now. That means obtaining the office of the most powerful person in the world, the President of the United States. But Musk can’t have that because he wasn’t born in the U.S. He’s a South African import, who, according to reports, inherited an emerald mine before getting his company started on U.S. soil illegally, apparently, before obtaining the proper credentials.

So, unable to get himself elected to be the nearest thing we have to an Egyptian Pharaoh, a sun god who walks the earth like a giant while all others cower in fear, he’s trying to buy his way in. With a quarter of a billion dollars. Why? To get next to Donald J. Trump, our soon to be anointed American god, who admires, perhaps idolizes, Vladimir Putin, dictator, absolute ruler and god of Russia, master of all he observes, a man who is trying to rebuild the old Soviet Union. Apparently. And who is helping him get that done, as Ukraine is devastated to satisfy Putin’s god-like desires? Why it’s Kim Jong Un of North Korea, of course. Dragon God of the North.

Putin is running out of soldiers to continue his war of conquest against the unfortunate people of Ukraine, so North Korea’s Kim, not wanting another god-factor dictator to go down in flames because that might reflect badly on him, has sent his troops to Russia, to help conquer Ukraine and perhaps one or two or three other countries that were at one time in the Soviet orbit.

Those who would be gods, need to stick together. Trump has professed his admiration and even “love” for both Putin and Kim. A bromance from hell.

And then there’s Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, who, it seems, has something in common with all the others. All these wealthy, powerful, conceited and probably sociopathic individuals who just can’t get enough. They demand absolute power and if you disagree, they’ll threaten you with a state sanctioned reprisal. They might send in the tanks and blow you away. In Putin’s case, some rare radioactive poison might be preferred.

The common factor is that they all want to be gods. The professor was right. For any one of them, more will never be enough. And they are all here at the same time. What a cruel and unholy turn fate has dealt us.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Welcome To Our New Ongoing Alternate Reality

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Putin has been making noises about nuclear war for months. Now Kim Jong Un, is making the same threatening sounds about nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula while his troops fight alongside the Russians in Ukraine under a master plan obviously drawn up by the Kremlin. Wonder what China thinks? What’s keeping their Commie big-wigs up at night?

Also have to wonder if Russia, North Korea and China are awaiting the coronation of Prez Elect Trump, before announcing their new hybrid Communist/Autocratic axis while NATO shrinks into near insignificance without the United States? Will it herald the Chinese attacking Taiwan and maybe some of the Japanese islands while the Russians continue pushing into Ukraine and possibly other countries as well, all with the blessings of Donald J. Trump? If that does happen, will even that be adequate to convince Trump’s supporters that they made a massive mistake?

Why didn’t anybody tell us?

By the time the right wing media gets done with what will be a boiling cauldron of misinformation, disinformation, opinion and rumor, the Trumpsters will have no idea what’s really going on or why. But that’s to be expected, the truth being so bothersome to autocracy. Anyway, for them it will be nothing new. It’s what they want to hear. It’s their comfort food. It’s Pavlov, blowing his whistle.

Blog, Media, Putin, Russia

Complacency And Neglect?

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Is anybody else the least bit interested in how complacent the news media have become regarding the fact that Ukraine has not only invaded Russia, but is pushing farther into the country almost daily, capturing 200 Russian soldiers? The captured Russian fighters are being described as “conscripts,” with some accounts making it sound almost like they laid down their arms and surrendered, rather than fight the Ukrainians. Is Putin, running out of soldiers willing to fight his ego-driven war?

The Russians, meanwhile, appear almost flummoxed over the move leading to questions about what Ukraine will do next. Will they march into Moscow, with Putin making his escape to North Korea? Of course not, and yet, there are questions. I know it’s been more than two years since Putin invaded Ukraine, I know Russia has launched a missile attack in retaliation, but come on now, this is Ukraine invading Russia. A country lead by a megalomaniac dictator with a nuclear arsenal. He reportedly thought this thing would be over in days or a couple of weeks, and here we are headed for a three year long conflict that threatens all of Europe. A conflict that has resulted in tens of thousands of Russia’s best and brightest leaving the country.

Or am I expecting far too much from the U.S. press? A media controlled by a relative handful of industrial giants who have normalized a national criminal running for president? A man who should be in prison for leading an attempted coup? Only in America. Or Germany, in the 1930’s. Or is it just me? Am I losing my perspective, something I worked so hard to develop and nurture over so many years as a journalist? I think not. I think the news business has changed, and I’ve remained pretty much the same. Proud of it too, thank you very much.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Trump

Joe And The Dems Need A Reality Check

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High grocery prices may be the Republican Party’s best friend right now. I have no idea how middle-income Americans are able to feed their families. A whole lot of Wonder Bread and spaghetti with watered-down ketchup for sauce, apparently. If they can afford to put gas in the car to drive to the market.

The situation with the Republican Party is seriously comedic, or it should be. A handful of separatist lunatics are controlling the entire House of Representatives, as just one vote from a MAGA Republican, can boot Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair. So the Speaker, third in line to the Presidency, must bend to the will of a few MAGA nutjobs, as they continue to support a candidate facing not one, not two, not three, but four criminal indictments. Topping it off, Vladimir Putin, is now voicing his support for DJT, as he spews condemnation of our democratic system.

Imagine that, Vladimir Putin, international terrorist and pariah, thinks we have a bad system. A man who leads a country people are exiting in droves with almost nobody wanting to get back in. When was the last time Russia, had a border crossing problem, with somebody trying to get in as opposed to getting out?

Then there’s Tommy Tuberville, a former football coach who lives in Florida but represents Alabama in the U.S. Senate, where he and he alone, is stopping our military from appointing new leadership to make a statement about abortion. He needs to get out of politics and go back to football. If a team will have him. Football is checkers. American politics is three-dimensional chess. Tuberville, is in over his head and our military readiness is being damaged in the process.

The Republicans are weakening our military and crippling the House with a threatened government shutdown, while they support a man who lead an attempted coup against the United States while cozying up to Putin and the Russians, who want nothing short of our destruction. It would be a massive comedy of Republican errors, were it not for the fact that millions upon millions of average Americans can’t afford groceries and gas, while the Democratic Party, continues to act like everything is just fine. If you listen to the President we’re more than fine, we’re great. Well, not really. Not everybody. And Mr. Biden’s position is that we have the strongest economy in the world? Maybe he needs some new advisors? Maybe a trip to the market to do a little shopping on a fixed income budget?

It’s way too easy for gougers to hide behind claims of the war in Ukraine disrupting international supply chains while our elected leaders look the other way. World food prices hit record highs in 2022, but the price of almost everything at your local market shot up, not just food and products impacted by international markets.

It’s so easy for those reaping huge rewards to argue that those of us without degrees in economics can’t begin to understand the implications of international trade, how the price of grain in the Middle East, impacts the cost of a jar of pickles or a pound of sugar in Omaha. There are credible charges that the gouging goes beyond the supermarkets, which have already hit record high prices, and into the military.

As for the impact of Covid, surely its impact on supply chains has had more than enough time to level out? Should we really be expected to pay $10 for one Covid test kit that costs pennies to produce?

Dem leaders need to be wary of turning their backs on consumer prices that are crushing average Americans, while the UAW appears poised to join SAG/AFTRA, the Writer’s Guild and custodial workers on the picket line.

The Writer’s Guild and then SAG/AFTRA were among the first to recognize that working people have reached an economic tipping point. A realization that Russia, isn’t the only country with a giant gap between its oligarchs and average working people, a gap that will surely grow with advancing AI and the ever-increasing march of automation threatening to make us all obsolete.

As in 2016, this upcoming election is the Democrats to lose. Some, apparently, think that’s not even remotely possible. Could be the same bunch that thought it would be a slam-dunk for Hillary in 2016.

Biden, Blog, Putin, Russia

Don’t Go Down In The Basement

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A couple of things-

I’m now afraid to go down in the basement. Not sure what might be down there, except for a lot of boxes filled with documents I collected as a reporter over the years. Worried there might be something that could get me in trouble. I know I have John Glenn’s home address down there, but he and his wife are both dead, so I don’t think that really matters.

RIP and God bless you, John and Annie Glenn.

The second thing, is the Abrams Tanks issue. The U.S. Government, or Joe Biden, if you will, has given the green light to send a number of Abrams Tanks over to the Ukrainians. Apparently, this is what the Germans were waiting for, meaning they too, will now send a number of their high end “Leopard Tanks” to Ukraine.

This is serious stuff, folks. We’re already sending short-range missiles and anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, but the tanks are where Vladimir Putin, drew a line in the sand, implying that once we started sending tanks, he’d consider taking things to the next level.

Putin’s playing international chess, so who knows what he means. Which is what he wants us to think. If we send in the tanks, will he nuke somebody? That would be insane of course, but who’s saying that Putin hasn’t lost at least some of his marbles? At best he’s a sociopath, who murders or imprisons his political opponents, and at worst, who knows? Thing is, here we are, standing at the doorway to what could be World War III, and much of the media it appears, really doesn’t get it. At all. They’re more concerned with what are probably meaningless documents intellectually overloaded politicians inadvertently took home. Or were sent to their homes by someone else.

The classified documents, are turning into a big joke. The truth, probably, is that there are classified docs scattered all over the place, and it’s really no huge deal, except for MSNBC and CNN, who are continuously carping about how terrible this missing documents situation is. Is it really all that serious, or is it just something that’s easy for you to cover? And carp about. Continuously?

The tanks, and the potential for what’s happening in Ukraine to lead to a world war, are far more unpleasant to deal with, but it’s probably time to give these issues a little more air play. That way, if Putin does nuke somebody, your viewers will understand why.

Oh, and there were just three mass shootings in California in as many days. Is there some way to keep this problem of slaughter in our streets alive other than waiting for the next mass shooting to talk about it again? Also in California, the new Mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, is trying to deliver on her promise of getting thousands of homeless people off the streets. One report says she wants to find housing for 15,000 homeless in her first year. As part of that, she’s started a count of homeless persons in Los Angeles.

They think there are about 40,000 in the city, with another 30,000 or so, if you include L.A. County. That’s 70,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Maybe more. The count is underway. Here in America. A wealthy country. Do you suppose this might be worthy of discussion as opposed to acting like the world is threatened by a few misplaced papers in the home of a former VP?

Blog, Putin, Russia

Russia’s Worst Enemy

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First, somebody mysteriously blows holes in both the Nordstream pipelines. At almost the same time, Russia, begins punishing Ukraine for defending itself, by lobbing even more missiles into civilian locations. It almost feels like Putin tried using the pipelines as a diversion from all the civilians he is murdering for no reason other than conquest and his need for ego gratification

In the south, the Ukrainians are pushing back the Russian Army and have bombed the bridge sending in supplies to Putin’s troops. Now, suddenly, Putin’s foreign minister, Lavrov, is talking about the potential for peace talks, either with the U.S. or Turkey.

It feels like Putin, may be on the ropes, gasping for air. One wonders what our intel knows and how much pressure Putin is feeling internally as the Russian people demonstrate in the streets and flee the country by the thousands to avoid being drafted into the dictator’s senseless war against innocent Ukrainians, who want nothing more than for the Russian Army to withdraw from their borders and to be left alone to live in peace.

Because of his insane war of conquest for his personal gratification, everything Vladimir Putin did not want is coming to pass as a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO, has expanded and more than before, aligned itself as a wall of steel against Russia, a country increasingly seen as a pariah among nations. A country now under the punishing yoke of international sanctions. Most insulting of all perhaps, will be history forever seeing Putin as a butcher of babies and children. A man who failed both his people and himself.

When the killing stops and the madness ends, this may be viewed as another, anachronistic example of too much power in the hands of just one person. Something civilized people thought they had relegated to the past, with the likes of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Something Democracy, does not permit, which is why Putin has thrown so much of his energy into his attempted destruction of American Democracy.

Through it all, Donald J. Trump has favored, appeared to even idolize Vladimir Putin, a man who wants to destroy Ukraine and other free and democratic countries around the world. Those on the right who continue to support Trump and the Republican Party, need to remember this as they go to the polls. The future of our Democracy is at stake. Voting for a Republican, any Republican, is a vote to tear down our institutions and eliminate all that we hold dear. Freedom, cannot, must not, be taken for granted.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia

A Few Thoughts On Keeping What We Have

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Balsonaro, appears headed for defeat in Brazil, moving the country away from the far-right and towards the center-left. Could this be a precursor to the upcoming election here in the U.S.? Hopefully so, if you believe in majority rule and self-governance. This current batch of American right-wingers in the House and Senate clearly do not, witness their stand on public education, women’s rights, the obvious need for more and not less regulation of firearms and the very survival of Democracy in America.

Beyond Republican Fascism in the House and Senate, the way the Supreme Court has been skewing far-right, leaves one wondering if “packing the court” might not be the only solution and whether Joe Biden will be able to get it done.

In the short-term, the best way to return the country to majority rule, that is to say a Democracy featuring self-determination, appears to be an overwhelming defeat of the Republican Party at the polls. An absolute mandate, leaving no question about how most Americans feel with regard to throwing out this current Oligarchy, which continues to hold so much power in the House and Senate.

We all need to think more about what the Ukrainians are fighting for on a daily basis. The survival of their self-determination through the democratic process. Their freedom. The latest word is that they’ve retaken a town inside the territory Putin and his Russian stooges now claim for their own.

You have to wonder to what degree the Russian dictator might not be losing control of both his military and his sway over public opinion. With his soldiers in retreat, record numbers of business leaders falling out of 18th floor windows and thousands of young men leaving the country by any means possible, Vladimir Putin’s future surely must be called into question?

The similarity between Putin and the far right-wing in America is interesting. Rather than doing that which is in their best interest, both seem destined to take actions that are in their worst-interests, a kind of self-fulfilling suicide wish. At least it appears that’s where Putin is headed. We can only hope the same will happen to those on the right in America who are bumping up against Fascism, with so many of them lacking the ability to sort out what or why they are doing it. I don’t mean those in the House and Senate who are doing it for the money, the publicity and the power. I mean those common folk, the lemmings headed for the nearest cliff. They just seem determined to get it done, even though they don’t really know why, except that they have been filled with hate and fear of the other. What fine madness is this? I think the Bard wrote that originally.

After reading about the “human stampede” at a football game in Indonesia, killing more than 120 people, one is left wondering about the very survival of our species, much less our ability for self-governance.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Putin And Trump – Both Coming To An End?

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Reports coming in from Russia, indicate people are being arrested in the streets for protesting the war. Other reports indicate military recruiting offices are being torched while airlines are bulging with people wanting to get out of the country rather than being subjected to Putin’s latest military call up. History teaches that it rarely ends well for demagogues, once the Russian people take to the streets.

Putin again threatened the use of nuclear weapons. This is, hopefully, his version of Nikita Khrushchev, banging a shoe on his desk at the United Nations while threatening, “We will bury you.”

At the same time, back in America, the Feds have won their appeal, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, two of the three judges having been appointed by Trump, giving them access to the top secret files from Mar a Lago. Meaning, they can move forward with their investigation of Donald J. Trump, while New York Attorney General Letitia James, moves forward with a civil suit against Donald and his children for bank and tax fraud and possibly more in a complaint of 222 pages and the possibility of criminal cases being pressed by the IRS and the SDNY.

Legal and moral accountability appears to be arriving at about the same time for both Putin and Trump, entwined in their mutual love of tyranny and hate for Democracy and the freedom it represents.

Blog, Putin, Russia, Trump

The Omnipresence Of Vladimir Putin In Trumpian Politics

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As the Jan 6 hearings move forward, it may be pertinent to remember that failed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is at or near the top of the list of those who want to see the destruction of our American Democracy.

It is also important to recall that Putin and Donald Trump are among one-another’s greatest admirers and that the Russians were actively involved in trying to get Donald Trump re-elected. Sometimes things are exactly as they seem.

Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia

Bad Madness

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Modeling himself in the image of a contemporary Joe Stalin, Vladimir Putin, now seems to be holding some twenty-percent of Ukraine. He simply bombed the hell out of it, killing thousands, and then took it you see. It’s fairly obvious he wants to take more, as the shelling of totally innocent Ukrainians continues. The man’s a butcher. A failed leader in need of a diversion.

Here at home, we continue slaughtering our own with semi-automatic rifle fire taking down grammar school kids, doctors and people out trying to buy grossly overpriced groceries. All the while, some of us are looking with fear to the upcoming election in November. An event which, we are told, certain Republican factions are prepared to try an undermine by claiming any races they lose were fraudulently conducted.

In other words, the criminal element is once again preparing to sew chaos by making the claim in court and out, that the law-abiding good guys are actually the real criminals. It’s a transference plot worthy of the KGB, and we can watch for it to be actively pursued here on American soil by Americans of uncertain loyalty – to anyone other than themselves.

I was thinking back tonight about simpler times not so very long ago when I was covering the campaigns of Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. One eventually wrote the book, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us.” The other, started a third party, which looked like it was going to be viable, but when the politics got too rough for his family, Perot, eventually bailed.

Thing is, unconventional though they might have been, neither Perot nor Nader supported the idea of supplanting Democracy with Fascism, which is what this current batch of toxic right-wing thugs appear to favor.

Things made so much more sense not so very long ago. Now, it’s not just the occasional unconventional politician we have to worry about, but what appears to be an ongoing and carefully planned conspiracy to destroy American Democracy from within with help from without. Unless, of course, unnamed billionaires decide to save us from a Dickensian future millions upon millions of Americans can’t seem to fathom.

As Sinclair Lewis warned us so many years ago, don’t think “It can’t happen here.” It very nearly did.

We are in dangerous third-world waters friends. There is no Ross Perot anywhere in sight and I haven’t noticed any of our many billionaires getting in line in an effort to save the Republic from imploding under the weight of thirty to thirty-five percent of our fellow citizens who appear to favor switching from Democracy to some bizarre form of strong-man rule, with God knows who at the helm. It’s not that they don’t love freedom and it isn’t that they are stupid. Truth is, they have simply been snowed into believing that what’s in their worst interest is really the best for them. Again, it’s a crazed reversal worthy of the KGB. Which, of course, no longer exists.

Blog, Media, Politics, Putin, Russia

The Real “Crisis!”

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ISSUE #1 So the President of the United States says the U.S. will support Taiwan, in one form or another, if they are attacked by China. This is has been commonly accepted ever since the Nationalist Chinese were driven from their homeland by Communists in 1949, so I’m not sure it’s the big “breaking news” story it’s being made out to be by the 7-24 click-bait outlets. I’m currently far more interested in the potential for the outbreak of World War III, a potential nuclear exchange precipitated by a possibly unstable Vladimir Putin, frustrated by his inability to succeed in Ukraine. A dictator, who may be facing internal pressures we know nothing about. That, is something that should get your attention, not that the U.S. will continue to support Taiwan, something it’s been doing for decades.

ABC-TV, needs to re-run the movie “The Day After.” The country needs a wakeup call about the realities of a nuclear exchange with Russia. It feels as though several generations are way too comfortable with a reality that’s been insulated by time.

ISSUE #2 I do not understand. MSNBC is reporting the baby formula “crisis” continues. Does this mean babies are dying? If babies are not dying, then what are people feeding their babies, and if there is something other than formula they are feeding babies, then is this really a “CRISIS!” or something else? Is the need for formula overblown by a profit-hungry baby food industry? Why isn’t the major media answering these questions instead of just repeatedly pushing a giant collective panic button? From microchips to vaccine to baby formula. Soon, women won’t be able to get a legal abortion. Welcome to the third world.

ISSUE #3 Our streets continue to be flooded with guns, while in Baltimore, a former mayor was just released from prison. The second Mayor of Baltimore to be indicted in ten years time. Oh, but wait! There’s so much more!

The current city council president, has been cited for ethics violations for raising money for a personal defense fund while his wife, the Baltimore States Attorney, has been indicted for perjury and making false statements in a real estate deal while the City explodes with crime. The current mayor, a Democrat, appears downright flummoxed as does his Chief of Police, who was brought in from New Orleans to help “fix” the Baltimore PD.

Bringing in Michael Harrison to be Police Commissioner in Baltimore, is working about as well as bringing in Willie Williams as Chief of Police in Los Angeles following the L.A. riots. No, check that, on second thought, Willie Williams, was far better than Harrison. Under Williams, the crime rate fell in Los Angeles and police-community relations stabilized. In Baltimore, crime just keeps getting worse with Harrison at the helm.

Kids in muscle cars were captured on video doing “donuts” at downtown City intersections – all caught on camera and dutifully sent out over the airwaves by local tv stations, without anyone asking the simple and obvious question of “where the hell were the police?” This did not happen on some deserted roadway, this happened in the very heart of downtown Baltimore. It feels almost like some of the local media view the City being totally out of control as their new reality. A terrible reality that must be accepted because nothing can be done to fix it. It feels like they have given up.

All this, while Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, whose name is being floated as a possible candidate for president, complains of the Democrat-controlled City’s inability to do anything to bring its crime problem under control no matter how many millions of dollars the state releases.

Not that it matters, but this city of more than 585-thousand people is on track to set a new record for murder. Turning it into an “us vs. them” political issue, probably won’t help anybody.

Could Baltimore turn out to be the country’s next Detroit? Maybe the state can cut a deal with one of the Mexican cartels to patrol the streets in pickup trucks like they do in TJ? Can’t be any worse than what they have now. It might even be more cost-effective.


Blog, Politics, Putin, Russia, Trump

Putin’s Diversion

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When I first read about this it seemed unbelievable. I promised myself that I’d eventually get back to it. So here it is. The following is from The Moscow Times, April, 2019.

“More than one-fifth of Russian households do not have access to indoor plumbing, according to official statistics obtained by the RBC news website on Tuesday.”

“Russia leads the developed world with the worst sanitation record, according to the London-based WaterAid NGO. A 2012 estimate citing official data placed the number of Russians whose households are only equipped with outhouses at 35 million, or roughly a quarter of the population.”

Are you still wondering why Vladimir Putin, a man whom Donald Trump has called a “genius” invaded Ukraine? It’s simple, really. He needed a diversion from his miserable failures as a leader.

At the same time, we have a real “glass houses” problem here in the U.S.. With more than 66-thousand homeless on the streets of Los Angeles County alone, the County Supervisors have just voted to create an office to coordinate their response to the problem. Isn’t it surprising they didn’t do so sooner?

Nationally, by one estimate, there are more than 580-thousand homeless in the United States. On another front, Buzzfeed estimates that some 700 people died in February of 2021 in Texas, as a result of the power going down during Winter Storm Uri.