Muller May be Running Out of Amunition

OK I wasn't asked for my password this morning.  This print still looks small.  I'm gradually getting used to this computer.  It's drizzling this morning.  The promised heat wave earlier in the week never developed.  It's rare for the weather department to be  wrong these days.  I transferred my music programs over to where Media Player can see them.  Otherwise they don't register even when you say "add music".   I still don't have three and a half years of Word files.

The rumor is that Muller is just on a "fishing expidition and isn't going to find any more big fish and that he might be wrapping up his invistigation sooner than September first.  Other news says that President Trump is up in the polls because people are "tiring" of these scandals or maybe they're just used to the lies and race baiting.  There is other news saying that the Republican "base" is still intact and that they are all coming out in November to reelect all other Republican house members.  They say that the Republicans could actually gain several seats in the senate.  I think democrats better find another way besides what they are doing now to be noticed and sway people to their side.  It seems that the summit is back on with North Korea.  Trump was just playing power games with North Korea and they understand how Trump's mind works better than we do.

Rosanne Barr has lost her TV show and also her agent because of that racist tweet that she sent out against Valerie Jered.  I don't know.  Saying that she is the product of the Moslem Brotherhood and "Planet of the Apes" seems almost minor compared to the sort of Nazi type stuff Trump says.  I didn't watch her show because it conflicted with NCIS but maybe in the summer repeats I would have. 

There is still talk about reducing the Universe as a whole to a single mathematical formula like Einstein hoped to do.  My hunch is that there are basic things uniting the whole of THIS universe but that there are other universes.  The only area where CHANCE enters is the very formation of THIS universe back at the time of the Big Bang.  It's my belief that God doesn't play Dice.  (Selah)

President Trump Blows Up North Korean Talks

OK here we are back from the dead, and this print looks smaller.  I got a new computer and as of now am missing the past three and a half years of data and I hope I can get it back.   I would have just as soon stayed with all of the old Windows Office programs but that can no longer be.

President Trump has blown up the North Korea talks with Kim Jung Um.  Trump sent the North Korean leader a really hostile letter saying he might have to Nuke them if things don't go right, at some date in the future.  In response to this hostility North Korea sent Trump a really consiliatory letter saying the door was still open to peace.  But Trump's dream of getting the Nobel Peace Prize is all shot to hell now.  Maybe there will be talks in the future but not on June 12th of this year.

The National Football League voted to let players stay in the locker room if they don't want to come out and stand at the playing of the National Anthem.  Up until about ten years ago the players always stayed in the locker room furing the performance of the anthem and only came out when it was time for the game to start.  TV networks never covered the National Anthem till the defense department began playing NFL teams to cover the national anthem.  This "stay in the locker room" position was part of a compromise worked out.  President Trump wants the players to be fired if they take a knee and perhaps even be deported from the country and no longer be called Americans "If they don't stand proudly".   Many people of the Black perswasion are not "proud" of what this country has become.  A few Team owners said they will gladly play the fines if their players protest.

President Trump and the Republicans didn't want Democrats to be there for the presentation of all of their "evidence" against not Trump but the democrats.  They wanted a secret meeting and not field questions why the republicans in congress voted that there was "no collusion".   Giuliani is saying that Muller will wrap up his investigation by September first.

Weinstein has been arrested and charged for all of those sexual assaults.  Some eighty women have lodged complaints against Weinstein.  Brad Pitt wanted to beat him up for making his girlfriend feel uncomfortable.   Meanwhile gasoline prices are up.  This is because Trump blew up the Nuclear deal with Iran increasing tensions and anxiety in the mideast.  Also refineries are switching over to the "summer blend" at least here in California.  In California the issue if "taking on Trump and standing against Trump" is a winner now to get votes in the California primary.  Trump isn't popular here.

I hope my next blog post will be longer.

Another Mass Shooting In A Church

There has been another mass shooting in a small town in Texas by an AR 15 wielding 26 year old.  The rifle-wielding shooter burst into the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday, killing 26 people -- including children.  This is a town of less than a thousand people.  The small church was so packed out it was like shooting fish in a barrel. The age range of the victims are between 5 years old and age 72.  This is the fourth most massive mass shooting of all time.  Las Vegas was 58 and Miami was 48 and Virginia Tech is 31.  The gun industry has blood on its hands, no doubt about it.  Devin Kelly fled and was pursued by police and shot but then Kelly officially shot himself and died from his own gun wound.  Thom Hartman points to incidents of domestic violence among the perpetrators of mass gun violence.  The gunman had in-laws who attended that church.  Since the guy isn’t a Moslem, Donald Trump won’t be calling him an animal or a terrorist.  Of course we hear so many of these stories it’s absurd to say “wait till the shock of the last one dies down before we even start to talk about gun control”.  Clearly these shootings occur on an almost constant basis where there is no recouperation time.  I’ve heard that mass shootings occur even more frequently but they just don’t make headlines in the news.  Clearly the democrats should make gun control issue number one in the 2018 midterm elections.

Humans are to blame for climate change. That's the verdict of an Executive-Branch Government Report concluding that Homo sapiens are the dominant cause of planetary warming since the mid-20th century.   The climate report, released today (Nov. 3), paints a dire picture of the present and future effects of global climate change, from sea levels that could rise by as much as 8 feet (2.4 meters) by 2100, to more-frequent heat waves and other extreme weather events. More people will die from climate change than die from domestic gun violence.  President Trump recently said "The storm that hit Puerto Rico wasn't that bad".  Evidence mounts by the ton.  Trump says he's "saving jobs" but all the new jobs are in alternative energy production.  So Trump is also a "progress denier".  But no amount of official “reports” will apparently convince some people. It is also in stark contrast to climate change stances taken by President Donald Trump, who has ranged from calling it a hoax to saying he had an "open mind" about whether human-caused climate change is actually happening.  "Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century," the authors wrote. "Over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations supported by the extent of the observational evidence." [6 Unexpected Effects of Climate Change]

Stephanie Miller was talking about the two big elections tomorrow for governor of Virginia and governor of New Jersey.  With the sort of luck the democrats have had lately in high profile elections the Republicans will win both of them.  Governor Wylder of Virginia didn’t even endorce the current democratic candidate for governor.  The Republican, Galespee or whoever is running these hate ads appealing to all manner of racism and prejudice.  I think an apt slogan might be “Hate Sells”.   We all thought that the Republicans were losing the demographic wars in the fall of 2014 and told ourselves that the deboccle of 2014 could never happened in a nationwide general election because all the racial minorities and fringe groups would come out to vote.  Further when you looked at Donald Trump you saw him along the lines of some eccentric candidate like Lyndon La Ruch, who believed that AIDS was spread by mosquito bites.  Certainly a birther would never be elected president.  The cries of Stephanie and all the rest are getting a little tiresome.  We keep hearing “Oh, we’ve just got to organize campaigns better and try a little harder”.  But no matter how hard we seem to try the Republicans keep winning.  Their flip humor is getting tiresome because these are not comedic times.  The issues are too serious today.  In 2014 we had the dual excuse that the Ebola virus was rampant and ISIS was a novel group then spreading terror everywhere and it was argued that “The American public went into emergency mode, and when they do that they invariably vote Republican”.   Now with 2018 just around the corner, I personally see no indication of a C change in American voting patterns. 

Sixty Minutes must have had a slow news day.  Their three segments were in the nature of filler material.  First there was a thing on Puerto Rico.  We know there is a crisis there in Puerto Rico.  Now they’re saying it’s worse than anybody thought.  Previously they said the lights would be on by Christmas time.  Now that date of restoration is moved back to February or perhaps early spring before power is restored.  Then there was a segment on a high-rise building in San Francisco that’s sinking and leaning fourteen inches.  But the safety experts say there is no danger and you don’t have to worry.   They marketed this 57 story building to apartments for millionaires.  Some of these millionaires have moved out at the loss of over a million dollars.  It’s a good thing they’re so rich they can afford that loss.  Then there was the little girl composer from England who is around eleven.  She is a genious; no doubt about that.  Although I wonder whether all of her “melodies” are original or maybe just a classic with just a few notes shuffled around.  I say this because of that “four note” composition.  I think the thing she was playing was from some Mozart concerto.  Meanwhile the Raiders and Miami were playing on NBC but I got distracted and didn’t watch the end of the football game.  I continued to have it on CBS and I guess I dozed off a little.  I went to bed sometime after nine.  I had a dream we were looking at some new model homes and they were large.  They were in small clusters around the central courtyard and I think there were four different floor plans.  They were multi story and spacious.  There was one model with four floors and a stairway, and some young woman was (maybe it was Glenda) was living there on the top bedroom at the top of three flights of stairs. 

Are The Walls Really Closing In On Trump?

 “Meet the Press” was a little wordy with their announcements this week but I found their guests to be rather lacking in substance.  They all appeared to be stone-walling.   It would seem that Michael Flynn will be indicted very soon by Muller. Let me just say this.  My concern is that President Trump hasn’t really felt the walls moving in on him yet.  He’s going through his daily routine of travel to foreign countries like an extended vacation show package of “The Price is Right” and hasn’t really had to worry about investigators really going after him personally.  And as long as he personally doesn’t feel threatened he can continue to lie and all of his staff can continue to deny and lie just the way they have been doing.  I hope KNBC’s announcement just before eight that Michael Flynn is being indicted, and his son, too, but that won’t stop Shawn Hannity crying “fake news”.  From the point of a non political viewer one could look at it as just a pipe dream fantasy of the liberal media that the Republican party is in disarray and directionless.  I hope the tax cut doesn’t get passed.  But maybe Republicans fron New York and California will vote against their own voters’ interest in the name of party unity or something.  And as to the matter of Bernie Sanders being sabotaged, we on the left have to be carefully we don’t fall prey to Russian propaganda just like Shawn Hannity apparently has, that the democratic party as an organization is hopelessly riddled with corruption. 

 Today is Sunday November 5, 2017 and it’s Guy Fawks Day.  I don’t remember who Guy Fawks was but I knew once.  It’s the day John Lennon wants us to “Remember”.   Today is also national donut day.  The donut, it seems, was invented in 1847, which means during a lull in battle during the Civil War the troops could have gone to the local donut shop.  I wonder what Alice Horton’s deep fryer would sell for at auction.  They want us to know high tide is at 9:11, which means it was probably around 9:11 yesterday too.  Of course high tide around here comes when the moon is just a little above the horizon or just a little below the horizon.  Thusly low tide comes when the moon is a little past the meridian.  We learned from CSI Miami last night that elevators are braked by electro-magnets.  Now you know.  I wonder why cell phones don’t all go kablui when you enter an elevator.  It’s Kelly Clarkson’s fifteenth anniversary of being the first star to win on American Idol.  It wasn’t long afterwards she had her first number one single.  Some people say “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, but don’t tell that to a person who’s just had a heart attack.  For that matter, if that saying were true then all the smoking I’m refusing to quit doing is actually making me stronger.  The saying isn’t realistic.  But it sells.  We learned yesterday that Mary Wells was going to be teamed up with Marvyn Gaye for a duo, of which Marvyn Gaye is famous.  But then Mary Wells quit Mo-town all together.  The problem is if you take the word of dead people- - Mary Wells quit Mo-town because they had put her on the shelf and Mo-town ruined her recording carrier in favor of Dianna Ross.  By the way I didn’t near any songs by the Supremes yesterday afternoon.  Maybe I was just out of the room.  And then we have that country and western woman singer who protested the Glen Canyon dam back in the ‘fifties during the Eisenhour administration.  It ruined the natural beauty. 

The book of Eccliastes says “When you die, the soul goes back to God, who gave it”.  It also says “As a dog dies - so dies a man”.  To me this means that pets have the same status as human beings.  They too are creations of God and not from some (ungodly) “Animal Plane” as Chuck Smith maintains that they are.   The Mormons teach that existence comes in three “Acts”.  First there is your pre-life.  Then you are incarnated in your fleshly life here, where you lose your memory of what went before.  Then in act three after you die your former memory is restored to you”.   Ruth Montgomery also teaches this life as a “learning experience”.  I guess why I am asking myself these questions now is that for most people their certainty of an After Life increases as they get closer to death.  For me in the past twenty years or so I have become increasingly uncertain about what happens in the afterlife, so I need to know.  But what does the phrase “back to God” mean.  Some see God as the “collective unconscious”.  But in this case it is we who are “unconscious” or not conscious- - of what is going in the minds of either God or the dearly departed.  George Harrison is a spiritual man.  I wonder what he believes.  The thought hit me that we’d have all these good friends on “the other side” who would be cheering us on in our pursuits here on Planet Earth, and naturally we would not want to let them down.  (Selah)

The albums listed on the back of the latest compilation are “Honkey Tonk No 9” “One Taco Short of a Combo” (final version) “Trail Mix” (final version) “John Lennon Twin Spin”,  “The Year of the Rooster”, “One Person Plus The Truth”,  “Relics From a Different Age” (final version) “It’s A Lover’s Question” (final version), “Keys to the Kingdom”, “Coda”, and “The Final Bricks in the Wall”.  This makes eleven.  The upper left is the blank square patterned after the “Yesterday and Today” album saying “Enjoy these other Albums”.  It’s twelve squares in two rows of six.  It would be too many pictures (just too small for a CD) if we included the four from the past few months.  But just for your own curiosity these are “Eights and Aces”, “Never a Dull Moment”, “Predators”, and “Kicking the Bar Over”. 

 I caught Rhapsody in Black and they did fall of 1964, a year they do very little of.  The songs I recognize were “Duel Efficiency” (?) “Going Out Of My Head” by Little Anthony, “Needle in a Haystack”, “Opportunity Won” (?), “Dancing in the Streets”, “Out of Sight” by James Brown, “Bread and Butter” by the Newbeats, and ‘La – La – La – La – La” and I don’t know the group but it was popular in August of 1964.  (I recorded it)

Bo Bergdoll Gets No Prison Time

We’ve got a lot of news to get through today on this November 4, 2017.   Bo Bergdoll is a free man today for the first time since his arrest for desertion.   I think it’s a sensible compromise when you think about it.  He was dishonorably discharged, which means a lot when you try and get employment.  But the authorities figure he must have done enough prison time when he was in the cages in Afghanistan or wherever the Taliban held him.   He was apparently subjected to other forms of torture and deprivation.  President Trump reacted strongly to this sentence saying that Bo Berdgoll should have been taken out and shot.  At least two of the officers who went out looking for him were seriously wounded- - one in the head and the other in the leg.   I had heard previously he could get life in prison for his crime of desertion but instead he’s a free man today.  I guess now the best thing to do is to fade into the woodwork.

Jeff Sessions has been caught lying to congress not once but twice about a meeting of March 2016 when Sessions and Popadopalis and Trump were all together and Popadopolis suggested that perhaps a meeting could be set up between Trump and Putin, but that Sessions turned the idea down.  But now Trump is attacking Jeff Sessions for not going after the democrats for all sorts of imagined crimes, including some included in Donna Brazil’s book.  Back in the fall of 2012 when Obama was running for re-election, he gave a speech called TAKE THE BULLET OUT.   This is what the country needs to do with President Trump.  Trump is like a bullet to the heart of the values of America and we need to remove him before we can clearly see what other problems we have.  There was a six pack compilation I did and two of the tracks were "My Love is Alive" and "Spanish Boots".  The thing also included 'Ogre Battle" by Queen but we aren't using that track.  Trump is an ogre though, and we are at war with him.

 

November first is the start of the sign up period for next year’s Obama Care.  I think my situation is different and I wouldn’t qualify for Obama Care.  They still have all four plans, the Bronze, the Silver, the Gold and the Platinum plans.  But I’ve heard that the insurance rates will be jacked up this year because Trump pulled the insurance loss funding where the insurance companies are guaranteed their money even if they have a loss.  So naturally they’re jacking up the rates.   But Obama Care is still the law of the land.  Speaking of jacked up prices, locally they are taking on seventeen cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline because of that twelve cent sales tax that just went into effect.  The whole “winter blend” argument went by the wayside.  There is no absorbsion of prices.   Of course with cigarettes they hacked up the price of a pack of Montegoes from $3.80 to $6.20.  That’s two dollars and forty cents higher and beyond the two dollar cigarette tax increase.  People never like being ripped off by government and they always want to know that if taxes go up their money is being used for something worthwhile. 

The I Phone 10 release of yesterday was an international affair from Hong Kong to Tokyo.  Everywhere lines stretch for blocks and people get in line twelve hours early, or even more.  They are limited to purchasing two phones once in there.  I’ve heard there are no buttons any more but the phone goes by gestures now.  Like what?  Do you play a game of charades with your I Phone or something?  Anyhow people don’t like it.  But all I can say it’s a testimony to the general prosperity right now that people can fork out one thousand dollars for one. 

The economy is going great guns right now.  The Unemployment Rate sunk to an almost unheard of low of 4.1%  This just might be the lowest since the Viet Nam War or something though they claim it was this low in 2000 just before Clinton left office.   261,000 jobs were added last month, which is also a robust figure by recent standards.  But I get you it was better under Clinton.  So some would say to me “Does this mean you are wrong in predicting the economy will take a dive soon?”   It’s theoretically possible for me to be wrong of course, but I know the laws of gravity and nature and things just don’t keep going up forever.  Ten years is about the outside limit as far as the economy going straight up without a break is concerned. 

Harvey Weinstein is going to be charged with rape.  They have enough evidence to make it stick, and I guess they have some that are within the statute of limitation.  Someone said that 87 women have brought charges against Weinstein.  This guy will be in prison soon.

President Trump is going on a thirteen day Asian trip starting yesterday.  He’s visiting five Asian countries, Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philipines.  He isn’t visiting Singapore.   You have the tandom issues of Trade and Nuclear War looming.  I just hope the President takes a vacation from tweeting, and I hope he accomplishes his goals.

Massachusetts is considering in their legislature staying on Daylight Savings Time year round.  They would then be moving to Atlantic Time like New Brunswick.  Of course it would mess up their TV viewing schedule unless they wanted to wait till nine o clock to start their TV network viewing and go till midnight.  But the legislature aknoledges that they would at least have to get Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to go along with them in this change or the thing wouldn’t be workable.  I think the evenings begin really early in Boston now.

Manuel Diaz, that gang member was gunned down I n an alley in July of 2012 will at least get some satisfaction from the grave.  His mother won a settlement with a civil case jury who at first awarded her 13 million for a wrongful death case.  But then the judge pruned that figure way back.  I remember that case and the cops were trigger happy with this unarmed man and wouldn’t even render medical assistance but were content to let him die.   

Trump's "Christmas Gift" To the Rich

President Trump wants to have a gift to the rich all packaged up nicely with a bow and delivered before Christmas.  Trump's long awaited tax slashing plan was finally rolled out yesterday November 2nd.  There really isn't much in it that wasn't widely circulated before but let's review anyhow.  The number of tax bracket is being cut from seven to four.  The richest 39.6 bracket is still intact but nobody will have to pay it.  This is because it's now easier for the rich to "incorporate" themselves and pay only twenty percent, which is the going rate for corporations now.  Trump says with all that extra money businesses get they'll raise wages to "share the wealth".  When have the rich "shared the wealth" without a gun to their heads.  And the other claim is that it will repatriate all of that foreign money overseas.  This is a pipe dream.  They have a good scheme going now and there is no reason for them to change it.  They claim they are eliminating deductions, but only for the poor and middle class- - not the rich.  You can't deduct state and local taxes, and there is a cap on property tax deductions.  You can't deduce medical expenses or interest on student loans.  (I thought someone was going to do something about that crisis)  Meanwhile the rich can deduct private jets and limozines and three martini lunches.  There will be no "postcard" returns for the rich.  They will still list a long series of deductions for them.  Yes the standard deduction is increased but I would remind you that it's the rich who have all those large families for deductions.  And also they are eliminating the estate tax.  This is a tax on estates over 5.5 million and allegedly affects only the top one fifth of one percent, but it still represents a lot of government income.  (I dispute that 0.2% statistic but that's what they say)  Also there is another change in the law that affects church.  As you know there was something called the Johnson doctrine by which Church were forbidden from being overtly political.  If they were they'd lose their religion exemption status.  Now I'm hearing a different story.  Back in the fifties there was something called the Johnson amendment.  This is the law that made it illegal for churches to be political and still keep their vast deductions.  Thom Hartman says that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were both gung ho on keeping up that wall of separation between church or state.  President Madison vetoed a provision that would give government money to private churches.  And Jefferson wanted "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence rather than "The Christian God".  Apparently Washington refused to say whether he was a Believer or not.  As to the matter of business expenses- - if it's a real expense like getting a new drill press or some equipment that's worn out and needs to be replaced, then of course you want to deduct the expense.  But why do you have to get someone drunk at lunch in order to conclude a business deal?  I think some Court ought to come up with the "doctrine of necessity".  (You heard the term first here)  If the expense is absolutely necessary for the conduct of a business then it should be allowed.  But the Republicans won't even pass this bill till Thanksgiving and given their schedule there are only nine working days between yesterday and Thanksgiving.  Then it goes to the senate, and if the senate makes any changes at all it will greatly delay this bill.  Then there's the old question is why you don't have to have a sixty percent vote to pass the bill in the Senate like in the Obama days, like all of those bills that died because a Democratic Senate didn't have sixty percent to pass them back in the Obama Presidency.  To me this is a gigantic double standard.  But even then there are a lot of Republicans from blue states that may balk at this tax bill, and you know every single democrat is voting against it.   I'd give the bill less than even odds of passage before Christmas.

Thomas Jefferson regarded tyranny of the clergy as one of the three types of tyranny that "He had sworn on the altar of the Eternal God" to oppose.  Swearing to God to oppose religious tyranny may seem like an oxy-moronism but clearly Trump wouldn't mind a little tyranny of the "right kind of Christian".  This is the brand of Christian that is adulterated (watered down) enough for Trump to find acceptable.  But the other two types of tyranny Jefferson was against are the "War Lords", who would keep us in a state of perpetual war all the time, and also the tyranny of the big banks and the international corporations.  James Madison regarded it as impossible that a nation could be at War all the time and not have Democracy suffer.  It seems clear to me that Donald Trump is in favor of establishing all three forms of the thus described Tyranny.

There is a report from FOX news and I just saw the video - - that Donna Brazil complains that the deck was stacked in favor of Hillary Clinton as far back as August of 2015 one year before she was nominated.   Hillary forces had total control of the party.  There is also a rumor that Debby Wasserman Schultz fed the questions to debates in advance to Hillary and FOX thinks the government should look into that.  I heard from another source that they rigged the opinion polls to show Hillary with higher numbers than she really had and Donald Trump was able to take advantage of this.  If Bernie Sanders had been chosen he would have won the election.  I firmly believe this and right there I say is the “bottom line”.  And I think the democratic party organization has a duty to their members to pick the Best candidate who stands the best chance of winning in November.  This was clearly Bernie Sanders.  Most of what Stephanie Miller was saying about this this morning was bullshit.  Hillary put her own political desires ahead of the interests of her party.  And that is bad leadership.

We substituted "My Love Is Alive" by Gary Wright, which is way better than the song we got rid of.  Also I didn't want two similar sounding disco songs in a row on the album.  Actually we're getting rid of the disco entirely.  We're putting in "Spanish Boots" by Jeff Beck.  We have what you call essential disco songs such as “Play that Funky Music, White Boy” and “Do the Hustle”, “Do a Little Dance - - “,  “Fire”, "the SWAT Theme", and “Love Roller Coaster”.  We don’t have “Disco Duck” but we do have “Disco Toilet” on that beer mug album from August of 2014 in “Marcus in Exile”.   I don’t even remember how “Disco Duck” goes, but there is one reference to the song in Rocca Rolla in an exhaustive search.  This is Thursday November 2, 2017 and this was the day the Republicans had schedules for their roll out of the great tax cut bill that according to people on Shawn Hannity should have been rolled out 45 days ago.  The odds are growing ever slimmer that the thing will get passed and signed by the end of the year. 

The Houston Astros have won the World Series.  I didn’t stay for the trophy award because it seemed like it was either commercials or they were showing something out.  The Astros got off to a fast five to one jump in the second inning and then their number of runs froze.  For a long time the score was five to nothing Houston.  Finally the Dodgers scored a run but they should have gotten a lot more but the Dodgers were shot through with bad luck.  The Dodgers left ten men on base.  They said it was the only game seven ever to be played in Dodger Stadium, which is hard to believe.  They said their only world series in Brooklyn was in 1955 but someone else said they had four World Series victories while in Brooklyn.  I had “Riverdale” on for a while and then it was “Law and Order” at nine to ten.  I was more wide awake.  

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.