True and False Conservatism

Conservatism used to mean something quite different than it does today.  It used to be that liberals were for a rapid rate of progress but that conservatives were for little to no progress.  They would allow for progress only if convinced it were absolutely necessary.  This is very different from the sort of right wing conservatism we’ve seen in the past 35 years.  Ronald Reagan instituted a “revolution” of sorts of gingoism and racial bigotry opening his campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi.  His goal, which he achieved, was a tax burden shift from the rich to the poor.  So he eliminated tax deductions for credit card dept for the poor, but allowed rich people to be paid on stock options so they would only be taxed at fifteen percent and then only if they sold their stocks.  Trump can’t complain his is the biggest tax cut this country has ever known.  That honor went to George Bush.  I was half in favor of that tax cut because it helped the poor with rebate checks even.  There was a news feature on TV that told of all the savings for the average American that would “go away” if we ever went back to Clinton tax rates.  But you must remember the Clinton economic surge was brought about after hiking taxes on a broad front.  It looks like Thom Hartman may be right.  Tax hikes are good for the economy.  They certainly keep salaries for the very rich within reasonable bounds.  Thom suggested a twenty to one ratio is about right between the richest executive and the poorest paper pusher or cleaner of toilets.  But you know conservatism is more than just about having a war on the poor, though that’s a big part of it.  I doubt whether Buckley in the fifties and sixties would have summed up his version of conservatism as “a declared war on the poor”.   But we know there is the gingoism and militarism that does with it.  They want to go to war as long as they don’t have to fight it.  To them war coverage is just another entertainment show for them.  And then there is the paranoia and hatred of minorities such as Mexicans and Moslems.  There is an extreme religious intolerance among these people.  Only in one area does the right make a little sense, or maybe two.  These are in the areas of homosexual marriage and abortion.  And I am solidly behind the conservatives in these two areas because they are “traditional American values”.   The trouble is today most who say they want to go back to the fifties don’t have the vaguest idea of what President Eisenhower was all about or what the news papers generally published in those days.  Here is one more area of conservatism that is anything but.  These people are statists.  They want restricted freedom of the press and they want to take away our rights to privacy and freedom of molestation from the federal government.  They seem to want to throw civil liberties out the window.  They are hypocrites.  They want to throw people who smoke one joint in jail but are all in favor of the big drug companies peddling god knows what unsafe and untried products on us all, and their team full of doctors saying that you too have to be placed on a staten drug even though they are dangerous in a whole lot of areas.  They favor GMO foods and don’t even think we have the right to know what’s in our food.  These people want a hand in glove relation between congress and business but also want government to be secretive.  I would say as it pertains to big government that “Government should be a big as it needs to be to get the job down”.  We shouldn’t ideally be afraid of our government after all we voted for it.  There is something decidedly undemocratic among today’s conservatives.  In this they are very opposite to the Goldwater conservatives.  This is where I first heard the term “grass roots movement” watching accounts of Goldwater’s campaign.  These people are not Goldwater.  

I turned on Norman Goldman a few minutes late.  Michael Flynn has all of the legal liabilities as does Manifort but he wasn’t charged as KNX news said he would be.   Norman repeated my charge that “It’s not what you do but who it is that’s doing it that matters”.  Norman was just using a different version of it.  Norm defines terrorism is “violence” directed to gain a political aim.  I would disagree only to say that the sort of terrorism does just disgusts and horrifies you.  It isn’t to achieve any political end. 

On Days of our Lives you had two people resurrected from the dead.  One was Eve Larson, who got married to Damos before he was murdered.  She tells a very convincing story.  The only question is why she kept the relationship secret.  Then there were those tracking down Will Horton who ran into Elvis who lived in Memphis and used Dr Ralph’s services to resurrect himself from the dead. 

DECADES OF ROCK -released November 1, 2017

Rock With Me Henry (as played on KPFK)

Feel So Good (Shirley and Lee)

Pretty Little Woman Come A Knock, Knock, Knocking (artist)

Loui Loui (Richard Berry)

Witchcraft  (original 1955 version)

Sexy Ways (Hank Ballard)

Big John (Jimmy Dean)
The Jerk (The Larks)  

Searching For My Baby (Percy Sledge)

Saturday’s Child (Monkees)
Space Cowboy (Steve Miller)

I Want To Take You Higher (Ike & Tina Turner)

Spanish Boots (Jeff Beck)  

My Love Is Alive (Gary Wright)  

Speed of Life (David Bowie)

In Circles (George Harrison)

Temporary Secretary (Paul Mc Cartney)

Heart Breaker (Pat Benetar)

Run Like Hell (Pink Floyd)

I know what you’re thinking.  This album would have “worked” better thirty-five years ago.  The cover is of three empty big binder notebooks that are different colors and each has a span of years on it.  The first is 1953 -1962 and then 1963 - 1972 and the third is 1073 - 1982.   There is a double space typed document or papers that have red corrections of circles and word substitutions and insertions.  On the back besides the track listings are a showing of the front album covers of every album the Federation has released going back to "Honky Tonk No 9" almost a year ago.  It covers songs that either “slipped through the cracks” or else were not in my focus back in 2006 when most of these compilations were being posted to blogs.  “In Circles” dates to the Beatle years and was written when the Beatles were off in India.  “Henry” is not the usual version you hear but an earlier version with a few more offensive expressions in it.   Chronology is approximately in order.  This is November 4th and we are expanding the number of tracks to nineteen because we can get away with it.  Even if the average length of song was four minutes, which it isn't,  we could still get them on one CD.  These are two songs that fell through the cracks. "The Jerk" and "Space Cowboy".  Today's quiz question is "What was the original song for several hours posted before we added "Loui Loui?"  On Gary and Shannon they had a lot of trivia questions about the LA and Brooklyn Dodgers.  This is the day for it.  

Muller Hands Down Three Indictments Today

Special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller III on Monday revealed charges against three former Trump campaign officials — including onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort — marking the first criminal allegations to come from probes into possible Russian influence in U.S. political affairs.  One of the three men charged, former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty earlier this month to making a false statement to FBI investigators who asked about his contacts with a foreigner who claimed to have high-level Russian connections. The agreement was unsealed Monday.  Court documents described extensive efforts Papadopoulos made to try to broker connections with Russian officials and arrange a meeting between them and the Trump campaign, though some emails show his offers were rebuffed.  The third person charged was Manafort’s longtime business partner, Rick Gates. And if we want to read any further in this Washington Post story we have to subscribe. 

Paul Manifort and his friend Richard Gates did work for the Ukrainian government.  Most of the twelve charges against Manifort are financial in nature.  Millions of dollars were transferred.  Counts 3 thru 6 are failing to file reports of foreign bank activity.  Counts 7 thru 9 are the same charges.  Hence charges 3 thru 9 are the same charge.  Count one was filed on both men.  It’s “conspiracy against the United States”.  It isn’t negligence but “consciousness of guilt”.  They impeded the lawful function of a government agency.  That’s pretty wide sweeping but general.  Manifort is up for a fifteen year sentence.  Norman Goldman states that Manifort will have the opportunity to make a plea deal on the campaign collusion stuff, and that doesn’t seem fair.  They’re still trying to hide stuff.  Goldman stated that the document of indictment seemed “incomplete” in his perception.   Also today a court ruling overturned the trans-gender ban in the military.  Trump must be horribly frustrated today as the walls close in.  Senator Dick Derbin says the possibility of Trump pardoning Paul Manifort is very real.  I heard a rumor that Trump himself was inquiring “What are the exact steps to go about resigning?”

You know if this were twenty years ago and I’d call Paul up about a president’s conduct and he was conspiring with Russia and all, I would get a decent reception and he’d be willing to talk about it on friendly, amenable terms.  But nowadays Christians won’t pass condemnation on any government official without knowing their political party.  And then told they were a republican the other person would ask “What kind of Republican, a Trump Republican”.  Christians these days (and perhaps always have) judged you not on your actions but “who you are”.  What kind of authority or status do you have.  I remember how I knew Chuck Smith had completely sold out to the far right when he endorsed the content of “2016”, that hatchet job movie about President Obama.  Of course if I were to go on Twitter and type 140 characters, people would respond to that.  But they won’t respond to four or five paragraphs especially when I’m not writing in my own name.  Perhaps that’s my fault.  I should go back to Google plus. 

 A little after six I heard the news on Chris’ car radio that the Dodgers had scored three runs in the first inning.  Then they scored another run.  Then Houston scored four.  Later on in the evening it was 11 to 8 Houston coming out of the seventh inning.  The Dodgers didn’t score in the eighth.  I went to bed before the end of the game, for lack of coffee.  What apparently happened was that the Dodgers scored four runs in the ninth inning making it 12 to 11 and Houston scored one more run to tie it up at the bottom of the ninth.  Then Houston scored again in the bottom of the tenth and won the game 13 to 12.  If the Dodgers had one I’d say that winning game six at Dodger Stadium would be a slam dunk.  As it is it looks like the Series will go seven games.  The Dodgers will win game six and it’s a toss-up wh will win game seven.  That will be on Wednesday November 1^st after I get paid. 

Sixty Minutes had three good segments.  The first segment was on North Korea testing their missiles and rockets and they had a lot more success in 2017 than they did in 2016.  Experts now say they will be in a position to launch ICBM’s at us next year.  This is because they already have the Hydrogen bomb.  The middle segment was on the leader of Qatar who had been ganged up on by his Arab neighbors who are supposed to be his friends.  They are all of the Wahabbiest Islamic faith.  But women in Qatar have been able to drive for ten years now and they are just getting that right in Saudi Arabia.  Qatar allows Christians to worship.  And Qatar allowed US bases in that country after we were kicked out of Saudi Arabia after 9 – 11, which ought to tell you something right there.  But four Arab countries have issued strong trade sanctions against Qatar and have sealed off the country’s only land bridge.  So they are doing more business by sea and some recent trade has been with Iran.  Qatar’s neighbors complain that Qatar is soft on the Islamic Brotherhood.  Of course the Saudi’s are just as extreme as anybody and are behind 9 – 11 so they shouldn’t talk.  Finally Donald Trump is siding with Qatar, which is a good thing.  The third segment was this French Jewish guy who forged Nazi documents to save the Jewish population from being forced to board the trains headed east.  He was good at what he did.  After this it was “The wisdom of the crowd” and then it was NCIS Los Angeles.  I didn’t stay up for all of that or the baseball game either.  At seven I went for medication from Leah a little after seven.  At least we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

Whitfish Contract Canceled to Rebuild Power Grid in Puerto Rico

Facing withering criticism from members of Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the governor of Puerto Rico moved on Sunday to cancel a $300 million contract awarded to a small Montana company to rebuild part of the island’s battered power grid.  While government officials in Washington and San Juan have argued over how a company from Whitefish, Mont., with connections to the secretary of the interior but only two full-time employees secured an emergency contract that requires the work of thousands of people, the majority of Puerto Rico is still without electricity, nearly six weeks after Hurricane Maria knocked down thousands of poles and lines.  Some stores, medical centers, restaurants and a fortunate few private residences are running on generators, but most of the island’s 3.4 million people are plunged into darkness after sunset.  The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, known as Prepa, is generating just 30 percent of its normal output, the government said. The power grid is in such bad shape that the power authority is not able to say exactly how many of its customers are without power. The authority has estimated that repairs will cost at least $1 billion.  Gov. Ricardo A. Rosselló announced on Sunday that he had decided to ask the power authority’s board — which he appoints — to cancel the contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings, two days after FEMA issued a strongly worded statement criticizing the deal. FEMA said it had “significant concerns” and warned that it might refuse to cover the costs of the contract if it was found to be improper.

  I watched the Norman Goldman program till ten to four.  He was saying that the Estate tax covers property of over 5.5 million and that is in the top one fifth of one percent.  That can’t be right.  Not with the thunderous applause you hear at campaign rallies every time abolishing the estate tax is mentioned.   And not when people measure their wealth not in millions but billions of dollars.  Rumor has it that my parents' combined estate is over a million dollars.  If this is the case I do not believe that five times that would be a fifth of one percent of the population.  That is REALLY rarified territory.  I think whoever keeps the statistics on income brackets is asleep at the switch.  I think it's safe to say that President Trump's constituancy isn't limited to hillbillies from Kentucky and heartland truck drivers, or even disgruntaled factory workers in the Midwest.  It's the right wing that always talks about "Class Warfare".  And why not?  They started "class warfare" under Reagan - - and guess what?  They have won the war and the rest of us have lost.  Up till 1980 the classes were fairly clearly defined as to where each group stood and the same had been true for decades.  Of course our side talks about the "good" rich people who support liberal causes.  This must be as offensive to the right as the term "good nigger"was t liberals in the sixties.   The implication is that "good rich" aren't your average day rich person but must be closet Marxists or something.  I have a feeling we aren't going to be a better republic till there is a drastic turnabout in events and vast economic changes are made both in our tax policies but health care too- - - For The Better. 

 On Chris Matthews now the charge is leveled that conspiracy theorists all believe that “you have the belief first, and then you have to try to come up with the facts to back it up”.  In my opinion this is patently untrue.  I don’t believe that I’ll turn on Bill Handel today.   Bannon says that “It is a season of war against the Republican establishment”.   You heard it.   I posted today’s blog a few minutes ago.  I am hoping that improved content will drive my readership numbers up.   Mitch Mc Connell says he wants to back people who have a good chance of being elected.   Chris Matthews doesn’t believe there is an actual civil war among Republicans because basically they’re all after the same thing and that is screwing over the average American.   Both are after a party “purification”.  

You’ve heard the expression of “a chicken in every pot”.  Now an eleven year old kid wants “a locker-board in every locker”.  He’s the one who shortened the standard skateboard so that it would fit in a school locker or even in a back pack.  Apparently he got financial backers on “Shark Tank”, which should be to their liking.  They shouldn’t shy away from something that isn’t capital intensive.  All you need is a saw and a screw-driver and some paint to decorate the board.  He’s already sold some boards. 

I had Leo Le Port on.  The I phone 10 was officially “released” a week ago.  But now you had to wait till yesterday to be able to actually order one.  But you won’t get that order filled until the following Friday, November 3^rd.   But Leo tried to get one but he struck out.  But his wife called and got an order for November 10^th.  The device has a better camera and better facial recognition.  I don’t get it.  They say the devices won’t be generally available till Christmas.  This to me shows some major screw up in planning.   I don't see how they can have record setting sales and not get the merchanrise on the shelves.

They had Fats Domino day on Rhapsody in Black.  They covered his carrier from 1950 to at least spring 1960.  The fidelity of his recordings gradually improved.  “All My Myself” is that mystery rocky song I couldn’t remember last week they played.   Sometime I'm planning on doing anothe rock compilation featuring more earliest songs or rock.  In the year 1958 Fats Domino tried to change his sound even adding re-verb to tracks.  But the records didn't sell so at the beginning of 1959 he went back to his former style.  

Proclamation: The Era of Dwarfed Government Is Over

As you know I used to be a fan of Washington’s blog but since Trump’s election they have been pretty much out to lunch.  They defend Trump and continue to advocate some of these hysterical economic policies reminiscent of some alarmist far right group.  The National Debt is not a problem.  I would like to propose a slogan.  The era of dwarfed government is over.   Unemployment is down and the deficit is down and economic performance and the stock market continue to rise despite all of the doom and gloom of Washington’s blog.   It has been said on the Shawn Hannity show that it wouldn’t take that much to get the economy really cranking even better than it is now.  But it’s not by getting rid of pollution regulations.  Instead we need the right kind of fiscle stimulus and get the infrastructure rebuilt.  Trump said he wanted to spend money on the infrastructure but then we learned he wants to facilitate the whole thing by tax credits to business to spend money on public works.  I say public works should be public.  There are certain areas such as roads, bridges, and water works, that are part of the public domain.   It’s a mistake to trust the whims of private business to accomplish it.  All we need to do is to NOT cut taxes on the rich, and keep military expences in check.  Even President Eisenhower extolled the values of peace time spending being much more productive than big item military hardware items.   We as a nation need to get over our fear of normalcy, which is to say expansion.  I know this is a difficult concept for the people at Washington’s blog.  Governor Swartzenegger did an about face in January of 2006 when three of his far right measures went down in the polls the previous November.  Now it was the era of expansive government reminiscent of the era of Pat Brown.  There comes a time when we need to get over this economic phobia of big government.   Probably the statement Clinton regrets most is that of “The era of big government is over”.   Instead since then everything seems to be in constant crisis and short supply regardless of what the economy is actually doing.  It doesn’t make sense.  In terms of economic agreements suck as the Trans Pacific Partnership, I’m glad Trump has pulled out of this one.  This agreement along with others strips US courts of their constitutional sovereignty in ways we have elaborated to in the past.  Another area that is proven to stimulate a demand economy is to get the minimum wage up to a livable wage.  I think we should start with twelve dollars an hour and then play it by ear from there.   Clearly the $7.50 minimum wage level isn’t adequate for a living wage.  We know about all of those Wall Mart employees on welfare.  Then there is the matter of wage theft and working “off the clock” or else you’ll get fired.  Once again we need to emplwer workers to give then a means of support a family man needs.   This is what Thom Hartman has always talked about.  Roosevelt’s policies worked for over forty years and there is no reason why Kaynesian ideas can’t continue to serve us well.  

The Federation announced today that they released a Trumpless version of that album which first was announced on Sunday February 26^th, which is “Relics from a Different Age” with the same cover.   Five songs will fill out the remainder of the album but one of them is really short.   We need to think positive thoughts if we can.  Some day it may be that Trump is either successfully impeached or resigns for office, for some excuse of a reason Trump will say is brilliant reasoning.   I looked in the Wikipedia under “hyperbolic geometry”, which was a topic that was suggested to me.  This is their longest article but they also have “saddle plains” and hyperbolic space, and other technical stuff.  I don’t have the mental capacity to understand the concept either, despite their helpful graphs and designs.   If you are talking about a saddle shaped plane this would fall under the general umbrella of curved plains, and this no doubt is a big field with lots of complex math.  Spherical surfaces like with a globe would be a science in its own right.  If you extend a saddle plane to its logical conclusion you would get a donut shaped universe.  It would be the inner side of the innertube or whatever.   But they spoke of circles as if they actually existed in hyperbolic space, but they wouldn’t.  They would all be replaces by hyperbolas, and hyperbolas seen from the outside of the curve.  There is also crystal ball geometry like you get with a fish-eye camera.  All of these kinds of geometry would have their own laws.   But the bottom line thing is that hyperbolic trig doesn’t have degrees as we know them.  So all their theories seem to me to be thrown into a cocked hat.  They aren’t even possible, as I see it.  Instead you could have to base your “geometry” if at all, on some sort of time or “incident” based geometry.  After this I went for snacks in the courtyard and just missed them but then Rene said he was going upstairs to the music class so I went up in the elevator with him and a few others.  I got my lemonade and graham cracker but then Karen tapped me on the shoulder and asked for my name to write down.  As long as I was showing up in her class I had to participate, she said.  But I went back to the computer and caught their radio phone call at ten to eleven.   There no predicted Santa Ana winds today.  

Now this album is available completely Trump-free.  We had to switch out the "Adam and the Ants" track because the previous track was discovered on "Metal Melitia".

RELICS FROM A DIFFERENT AGE Revised and Rel February 29th 2017

Are You Ready To Rock? (Blue Oyster Cult)
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed (Almon Brothers)
Prelude / The Temples of Sphyrinx (Rush)
The Last In Line (Ron Dio)
No More Mr. Nice Guy (Alice Cooper)
Silver Spoon (Grace Slick) from a solo album
Fireworks (Blue Oyster Cult)
The Seven Deadly Words (George Carlen)
Julia Dream (Pink Floyd)
Rock and Roll Radio (Billion Dollar Babies)
Ma, Ma, Ma Belle (Electric Light Orchestra)*
The Deadly Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa)
Another One Bites the Dust (Queen)
Love Hungry Man (AC – DC)
King of the World (Steely Dan)

Disk two

Hell Bound Train (George Thorogood)
Midnight Cruiser (Steely Dan)
Am I Going Insane? (Black Sabbath)
Our House (Madness)
Keep Me In Your Mind (Scorpions)
Passion Play (Jethro Tull) (radio edit)
Pretty Penny (Stone Temple Pilots)
Muscle of Love (Alice Cooper)
Ant Music (Adam and the Ants)
Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (Bob Dylan)
Little Wing (Derek and the Dominoes)
TV Caesar (Procol Herum)

Walking On The Moon (Police)

The Lying's Over (Asia)

Paradise City (Guns and Roses)

The Art of Dying (George Harrison.  

Donald Trump Is Morally Unfit to be President

Today is March 28, 2017.   You know when I think of Donald Trump I can’t help but how much Christians have compromised their principles.  As you know one of my own seven cardinal virtues is Fidelity to moral principles, and moral people.  They used to pride themselves on how strict they were with Bible teachers.   I remember the time David wanted me to be a Bible study leader and Judy interjected and said “I’m just not a loving person” and hence unqualified.  It used to be that someone guilty of even the appearance of evil was disqualified.  Needless to say the person had to be sexually pure, as far as that is possible.  And in the Bible spirit he had to be “Well thought of by his piers in the faith”.   Clearly Donald Trump wasn’t “well thought of” in the Christian community before he was nominated.  Ted Cruz at the convention gave an empassioned speech and concluded it by saying “Therefore I say to vote your conscience”.  Certainly from a Christian point of view, Cruz said exactly the correct thing.  Clearly you want to lift up your hands to God and ask him for guidance in making important decisions.  But now all that has gone by the wayside.  Judy explained it as “Well maybe Trump looks bad but you have to realize it’s just the package it comes in.  You don’t disqualify the contents of the package because you don’t like the way the box is wrapped.  She wasn’t saying that when it came to me.  Judy also regarded my prophecy book as “unloving”.   What it was was honest, which is another Christian virtue.  I wasn’t going to put up kind of a fluff front or allude to emotions that I didn’t feel.  People would see through that.  I thought the important thing was to get God’s message out.  Judy didn't always feel this way.  She used to hate Trump more than I did.  Back about a year ago I was still holding hope for Trump, not knowing everything about him and knowing a whole lot more now.  Judy regarded Trump as a demagogue and a potential dictator.  He wasn't "constitutional" like Cruz was.  But someone cast a spell and a veil was cast over Paul and Judy's consciousness.  Tom Hartman said a year ago that there was this tiny group of rich elite that was going to "audition" and select the next president.  It was "whoever best got their message out".  (Selah) Well in like manner Donald Trump has gotten the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson’s message out.  Trump is a conduit for these right wingers such as his chief sponsor and chief, Shawn Hannity.  I respect Shawn Hannity because he gave everybody a heads up on our side about Trump.  Shawn saw before any of us did that Trump wasn’t going to keep his campaign promises when it came to things like not diminishing people’s health care, but would give them something better and it wouldn’t cost as much.   I am reminded of FDR’s mocking jab at the Republicans around 1936 where he pretended to quote them.  “Oh, we republicans want all those things the democrats want.  We really care.  Truly and cross my heart!  But we can do it cheaper and more efficiently, and the best part of it all is under our system, it won’t cost anybody anything”.   (laughter)  Some things Christians see as virtues are not on my list such as “having even the appearance of evil”.  Certainly all of this Russian connection stuff has “the appearance of evil” written all over it.  Also there is such a thing as humility.   While I don’t regard humility as a cardinal virtue, there is a certain virtue in being a little humble about yourself.  The world hates a blow hard, or a why who’s a show-off, ever craving attention.  We regard people who “play to the headlines” like this as inwardly insecure.  The Bible speaks against such behavior.  I remember while we still had the Bible study at Leslie’s apartment there was a place in Romans 12 where is says “One should not think more highly of oneself than they ought to”.  I would certainly agree with this.  Certainly integrity for me is a cardinal virtue.  How many people believe Donald Trump has total integrity in his business and personal affairs?  I rest my case.  Not that Trump is totally devoid of virtue.   I believe he may be a good deal maker and there are roles in business I’m sure where his particular set of talents could come in handy.  But not as President.  Not as the leader of the Free World.  (Selah) 

This republican leader who does all of these covert visits to the White House ought to be fired from his House investigative position.  Clearly the man is not qualified or any reasonable expectation of an unbiased investigation of Trump’s Russian connection.  What is obvious to the American public with the barest sprinkling of facts, seems obscure to the Republican head haunchos who regard everything as politics.  Once again Mark Bove hated politics.  People didn’t even like my prophecy book because some said it was too political, and politics and religion didn’t mix.  Politics and religion never used to mix in classic Calvary Chapel Christianity.  Politics was seen as “dirty” and hopelessly worldly, and something good Christians were supposed to withdraw from because they were “above it all”.   We have swung around 180 degrees from those days.  Today we have lowered ourselves to the lowest form of tit for tat communication in kind of a “nya – nya” rhetoric that’s worthy of a grammar school playground, but certainly didn’t go on in adult society.  The worst thing about President Trump is that he is hopelessly petty about everything.   Of course throwing your political liabilities to the wolves is something Governor Christie did all the time.   I almost admire the fact that Trump is a little loyal to his friends but he’s carrying it too far. 

Trump has done a massive roll-back of Obama’s executive orders.  Trump promised us that in his first one hundred days he was going to transform America.  He has till April 29^th, or just over a month from now- - to complete his complete Obama purge of America.   We told you how Trump wants to roll back industrial safety regulations and worker’s rights.  He also wants to invade our privacy by selling information corporations get.  Now he’s undoing all of Obama’s environmental and global warming regulations.   But this tag line of Trump is that “These are job killing regulations” wears a little thin.   Clearly market forces have made West Virginia and Kentucky coal less valuable.  People prefer natural gas, which is more abundant now do to all the fracking that’s going on.  If you blow off a mountain top or use giant drills to mine, you don’t need the man power you did when you sent man down a dark shaft with picks and shovels.  Clearly cleaning up the environment will create new jobs, and probably well paying ones, too.  There is not a “jobs crisis” now.  The unemployment rate is almost at a historic low of 4.7% and we are obsessed with “creating jobs”.  In like manner we are obsessed with aliens and terrorists coming across the border, and yet the net immigration rate has been a big fat ZERO for years now.  Trump plays on our darkest fears.  And yet areas where we should have real fears, such as polar ice melting- -  Trump is not afraid of that.  There is a blog called arctic-news.blogspot.com, where they run article after article about polar ice and ocean methane outgassing and acidity, and all that good stuff.  You know that ice reflects sunlight and ocean water absorbs it.  Clearly there is a tripping point where global warming will soon be out of control.  

The medication line was long so I watched Jeopardy and then got back in line. I got my peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Ida. I had gotten a butt from Phyllis Green earlier and on this 7:30 outing I got a whole white cigarette from Glenda. I think it’s only the fourth whole cigarette I’ve had all day. Then it was the second half of “Wheel of Fortune” and then it was “24”. I slept OK but I woke a little early with itching. John gave me a white short but Mario conned me out of some of it. But I later got two more butts from John and Mario ended up giving me two butts in a change of heart. I had the Stephanie Miller show on and there was no line at the medication window. I always get milk in the morning- - - from Ricardo today. That rock compilation with Bernie Sanders called “Keys to the Kingdom” has been changed as of today to begin with “Prelude” and “Tyrant” by Judas Priest. This album has been a “Victim of Changes” because we keep having to switch out songs. The post heading is “Making America Think Again” and it’s under “For the Record”. The people in the Federation took care of this weeks ago. I went out at five to seven and the sun was just up and I saw the sun shining on the north side of the building in the morning for the first time. I went into the dining room early.  We had brown sugar in our oatmeal from Aden. Our main course was scrambled eggs with cheese in it, and a whole English muffin- - with butter and jelly. Judy gave me half of her extra coffee because she knew I couldn’t get it from the store today. Louise offered me a lit white rollie that was lying on the ground. There are glimmers of stories about massive new investigations of the Trump administration on ABC network news.

You remember FORMER ACTING ATT GENERAL, SALLY YATES. She was the deputy Attorney General under Obama who became acting Attorney General in the first days of the Trump administration, while the new White House was waiting for Jeff Sessions to be confirmed. After Trump signed his first travel-ban executive order, Yates put out the word to the DOJ that they were not to enforce it. And that was the end of Sally Yates’s tenure as acting Attorney General.

Yates was in the news for another reason in January, though. According to WaPo, as acting AG, she was briefed on Mike Flynn’s now infamous phone call with the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak, in late December in which the topic of sanctions came up. Yates allegedly thought Flynn might have violated the Logan Act; she was also alarmed that White House officials, up to and including Mike Pence, were publicly denying that Flynn had talked sanctions with Kislyak, either because they were deliberately lying or because Flynn had misled them. Yates reportedly worried that if the truth wasn’t publicly known, the Russians would be able to blackmail Flynn by threatening to reveal the sanctions talk themselves — a dangerous predicament for the president’s national security advisor. So Yates went to the White House counsel, Don McGahn, and apparently told him what Flynn had actually said to Kislyak. A few weeks later, Flynn resigned for having misled Pence about the phone call.

Now the House Intelligence Committee wants Yates to testify. Yates is willing. The White House is not. Can they block her on grounds that her communications with the White House were privileged presidential communications? Yates’s lawyer says no:

All About Jered Cushner

BUT FIRST HERE'S MORE STUFF ON 9 - 11

Evidence will be presented here that will explain, in a comprehensive and internally consistent way — and fully in accord with all of the existing evidence that has been published thus far — many key questions regarding 9/11. Also explained here will be why some of this evidence has been suppressed — such as the crucial testimony of Osama bin Laden’s bag-man who personally collected all of the million-dollar-plus cash donations into Al Qaeda. Also suppressed has been the reason why no persons have been prosecuted for their massive funding of the 9/11 terrorists, including of their training for this complex international terrorist act. In other words: the reasons, and the funders, of the 9/11 attacks, have both been suppressed, until now. But all of these matters are actually part of a broader picture, which also will be explained and documented here:

Why did U.S. President Barack Obama, who bowed down to King Saud (a tyrant in a brutal hereditary dictatorship, and the world’s largest buyer of U.S.-made weaponry), veto the bill that would allow the evidence regarding who financed the 9/11 operation to be presented and judged in a court of law?

Why did U.S. President George W. Bush, during the month before 9/11, refuse to allow his CIA Director, George Tenet, to speak with him alone in private, even when Tenet frantically urged Bush’s gatekeeper Condoleezza Rice to allow him to, or else something terrible, which he couldn’t discuss with anyone but the President, would (not could — would) happen very soon?

Why did U.S. President Donald Trump, in his supposed anti-terrorist ban, choose to target the seven muslim-majority nations that he did, which hadn’t done terrorism against the U.S. (and not much international terrorism at all, really), and not target at all the world’s leading nation in both financing terrorism, and producing suicide-bombers — Saudi Arabia — not even include that country?

It’s not just about money — although the Saud King has a net worth higher than a trillion dollars, but Forbes and Bloomberg don’t even include any heads-of-state in their “billionaires” lists, though the world’s few richest people happen to be also royals (and therefore not listed).

It’s also, and even more, about power. We’re not supposed to learn about the manners of functioning of money and power at the very top, but nobody can understand 9/11 without addressing this issue, unless it’s being addressed as mythology rather than as history, which — in the case of 9/11 at least — it has.

Zacarias Moussaoui is the man who knew too much, and so he’s spending six life sentences without parole, at the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. That prison is designed for heads of dangerous gangs, who have, at other Supermax prisons, been able to communicate (usually in codes) to their subordinates outside (basically continuing to run the gang, from prison), and so this prison is the best one of all, for prohibiting Moussaoui from ever being able to communicate, to anyone on the outside, not only not to other members of Al Qaeda, but to anyone at all. Nonetheless, the 9/11 survivors and victim-families were finally able, in October 2014 (13 years after the enormous crime that had been committed against them on 9/11), to obtain the sworn testimony (sworn upon a Quran) in the legal case that they have been pursuing for over a decade in order to get to the bottom — or, really, to the top — of this crime, which has so diminished their own lives.  The great unanswered question in this paragraph is how is this hardened criminal connected with suits of the 9 - 11 victims?  WHY he is regarded as so dangerous is not answered here.  This article is good at asking questions but most other articles on 9 - 11 are far more definitive as far as laying out the three M's of means, motive and opportunity.

DONALD TRUMP'S RIGHT HAND MAN

Previously it was said of him. Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump and one of his closest confidants, will join the White House as a senior adviser to the president, Trump announced Monday, while a lawyer assisting the family said that Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump, will not immediately take on a formal role.

Kushner, who will not take a salary, is expected to have a broad portfolio that includes government operations, trade deals and Middle East policy, according to a member of Trump’s transition team. In a statement, the transition office said Kushner would work closely with White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon to execute Trump’s agenda.

Trump said he wanted to explore the possibilities for making what he has called “the ultimate deal,” a peace pact between Israel and the Palestinians. He is deploying his son-in-law — and now senior adviser on the Middle East — Jared Kushner to the task.

So, if you’re keeping track, Jared Kushner, who comes to Washington with no government experience, no policy experience, no diplomatic experience, and business experience limited to his family’s real estate development firm, a brief stint as a newspaper publisher, and briefly bidding to acquire the Los Angeles Dodgers, will be working on trade, Middle East policy in general, an Israel-Palestine peace deal more specifically, reforming the Veterans Administration, and solving the opioid crisis. Oh wait, that’s not all! Apparently, this new office will also be responsible for “modernizing the technology and data infrastructure of every federal department and agency; remodeling workforce-training programs; and developing “transformative projects” under the banner of Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, such as providing broadband internet service to every American.” We have certainly come a long way from “I alone can fix it.” How is Jared Kushner going to do all of these things? Simply “modernizing the technology and data infrastructure of every federal department and agency” is an enormous undertaking. In the United Kingdom, they had to create a whole new cabinet agency just to surmount that challenge. It would be great if Kushner would simply work on that one thing, or any one of these things. Instead, Kushner has now basically been saddled with several full-time jobs, in which he is responsible for fulfilling many, if not all, of his father-in-law’s campaign promises. Just imagine what Kushner’s daily schedule is going to be like:

You know the government is forbidden to record research on firearms or their mental health implications.  Now the Trump administration via 50 to 48 vote had stopped the reporting of unexplained deaths on the job so there won’t be those danger alerts any more of problems.  Also by a 50 to 48 Senate vote the Trump administration made it OK for companies to sell personal information about you to anybody.  It could be your future father in law or your neighbors or even the newspaper.  They not only know your entire browsing history but can know just how long you spent reading each site.  So if you looked up a disease involving itching, for instance, they would know it just like that.  Tim said that Consumer Reports was running a thing on privacy on the internet and that he sent me a copy of that article.  The other troubling item nobody talks about is the surrendering of Internet Neutrality, something that has existed since 1989.  We all take it for granted knowing that with Obama’s FCC chairman gone, things are uncertain.

Mick Mulvaney is Trump’s head of the budget. He says it’s not realistic to think you can pass a major Health Care reform bill from start to finish in just seventeen days. You really can’t count the seven years the Republicans passed repeal after repeal of Obama Care. In that seven years they never drew up an alternative bill. According to Norman Goldman it was unrealistic for Trump to blame the Democrats for the bill’s failure since the Trump people never reached out to the Democrats for their input. Now you have people from the Freedom Caucus and the Club for Growth sticking to their guns and refusing to compromise in the least, although huge concessions were offered them.

Blast From The Past

CODA (1969 – 1972)

Games People Play (Joe South)  

Eli’s Coming (Three Dog Night)

All Right now (Free)

Do You Know What I Mean? (Lee Michaels)

Saturday At The Park  (Chicago) 

Cross Eyed Mary (Jethro Tull)

World In A Tangle (Canned Heat)

From Here To There Eventually (Steppenwolf)

Overture (Jesus Christ Superstar)

Friends (Led Zeppelin)

Mercedes Benz (Janis Joplin)

Wicked World (Black Sabbath)

Low Spark of Hi Heel Boys (Traffic)

The Night Time is the Right Time (Credence Clearwater)

We knocked two years off the later date.  The cover photo is of a chain link fence and a light shining on the fence lighting it up a little.  In the background are various buildings like warehouses and such with a sign that says “Private Property”.    All the tracks except seven and eight were played on the radio at the time.  This album is kind of a needed CODA to “Missing Links”.    Some might call it “A protest against whatever you want it to be a protest against.  It was an era when protest songs still reigned.   

I didn't vote for Obama but I didn't vote for Romney either.  I still don't like him.  So I voted for Jill Stein of the green party just to go completely off the reservation.  I woke up the night before the election restless and resolved then and there I could not vote for Obama.  Basically it breaks down to five reasons, but there might be more.  First of all of course is his "wrongful life' stand on Abortion, which is beyond extreme and even worse than partial birth abortion.  The next is his coming out in favor of gay marriages last June.  That move apalled me then and I was surprised it didn't blow his campaign out of the water then.  The third is this whole relation with Wall Street - - which kind of transcends left and right.  Michelle Bachman, Ron Paul, and Rick Perry took stands against wall street abuses, so I side with those three.  I don't know what the banks ever did with that bail out money but I'm sure the tax payers would like to know.  There were questions about Timothy Geitner's wall street background, and also questions about his Income taxes before he was approved.  Also I am concerned about "re-inflating the bubble" repeating the same disasterous cycle over.  The fourth is the area that Paul admitted to me he was concerned about, which is government snooping into our private lives without criminal cause.  It seems that Google and some others don't mind "marking a sight as politically dangerous" if it's too right wing or something.  We can't have that.  Ron Paul wouldn't stand for that.  Number five is obviously this whole Bengazi thing.  No I haven't ignored all those Fox News links you have sent me.  They bother me.  And now with the whole bit about Petrayas resigning the plot only thickens.  We'll have to stay tuned.  I kind of looked over the Green Party platform.  It seemed - - reasonable, if more left wing than you might vote.  It seemed less specific than the "Peace and Freedom" party platform- - which features more specific left wing goals.

Explanation of following paragraph.   There is a progression of number ratios carried out to infinity leading to the Golden Mean.  8 and 13 is the fourth such series.   At one time there was the belief that there were 22 levels of the afterlife.  8 are unreal or "dark" realms.  These are from 15 to 22.  Thus zero kind of begins at 14.  Realm 13 was held to be the worst form of Judgement and Hell that was actually "real".  12 and 10 were seen as mirror realms of each other in this universe.  11 was the Sea of Green  9 through 1 were seen as heavenly realms.  Hence for something to be valid or real it had to have at least 13 "light" or actual or real realms and 8 dark or strictly unreal realms.  It was believed that since 8 and 13 were the fourth degree then the error encountered here (variance with the Golden Mean) would be the Same error in sampling you would get from using our square root sampling formula.  The connection really isn't made at all in the following paragraph, which originally directly followed the foregoing one.

I'm been working on a lot of math theories lately.  There are two things I'd like to retract or amend in my letter to Paul.  One was the assertion that the hyperbolic tangent numbers are incorporated in Einsteins addition of volicities theory.  I read it in a Wickipedia article, but I can't find any mathematical connection myself.  I don't know where they got it.  The other is the whole thing about statistical sampeling.  I said "What I need ia a one percent number to use".  Well, I've been thinking about it and actually I have a more ingenious theory about "the right number to statistically sample".  It's kind of like the Four Degrees of the Golden Mean formula, the traditional version of which is itself based on "Sampeling" so I thought I could make use of it.  As you know the fourth in the series of number progressions for the Golden Mean is 8 and 13, which will only result in - - like less than a two decimal place error or just a couple percent sampeling error.  The other part of the theory is the squared theory.  For instance if you have four people you sample one person.  If you have nine people you sample a third of them and if you have sixteen you sample four, and for twenty five you sample five, or if you have a hundred you sample ten.  With  ten thousand you would sample a hundred - - so there is your one percent everyone talks about.  Of course for a million would have to sample ten thousand, but keep in mind these are RANDOM samples, not scientifically screened for variables.  if you screen the sample, you're going to get a lot smaller number anyhow, which will result in a bigger necessary percentage of sample.  Where the golden mean comes in is the Four Degrees.  So if you have say sixteen people and you only want to sample three perople rather than four your accuracy goes to down to the 5 and 8 ratio, which is not as close.  But you can run the risk.  If you want eight degrees of accurecy you can use that golden mean pair- - and sample eight out of sixteen or ten out of 25.  But that's too much work.  Anyhow I just came up with this formula today.