The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben,

 Marco Rubio's political career has been funded and promoted by the Koch brothers.  They were looking for intelligent salesmen who could appeal to Hispanic voters. 

Rubio has backed the Koch agenda an estimated 98% of the time in the Senate-- including his repeated efforts to sabotage Obamacare and to reduce corporate taxes to their current lows.  (His one area of dissent was his support for the bi-partisan Senate Immigration Reform bill that the Tea Party House refused to pass.)

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/oct/27/patrick-murphy/patrick-murphy-marco-rubio-voted-98-percent-time-k/

In reality, the Koch/Rubio concept of "common good capitalism" is basically de-regulated, laissez faire, Gilded Age style Robber Baron-ism-- appropriately labeled by Duke University historian Nancy MacLean as, "misanthropic libertarianism."

Rubio is also a staunch climate change science denier-- a fossil fuel industry shill.   His employers, the Kochs, have spent millions on propaganda denying climate change science.  

In our protracted discussion of Donks vs. 'Phants,  I have enumerated for you the many substantive domestic policy differences between the modern Democratic Party and the modern Koch-aligned GOP-- on tax policy, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, education, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, voting rights, etc.-- but the facts I post always seem to go into one of your ears and out the other.

In that sense you, certainly, do seem to have an open mind... 🤥

In truth, it is simple minded and toxic to push the false narrative that there are no substantive differences between Donks and 'Phants.   As an example, the 'Phants passed two House budget bills after 2010 that would have, essentially, abolished Medicare-- turning it into a Koch/Paul Ryan Voucher Care scam!

I would urge you to study the historic impact that Medicare has had on reducing senior poverty in the U.S.

No doubt, both political parties have been corrupted by money, and the Donks have, unfortunately kow towed to the military-industrial complex since 11/22/63...

BUT almost all significant, progressive legislation of the past century has been accomplished by the Democratic Party-- e.g., the Social Security Act, the Securities Exchange Act, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. 

Nixon deserves some credit for creating the EPA-- but look at what Reagan, the Bushes, and Trump did to undermine environmental protection!  Need I mention the records of James Watt, Dick Cheney, and Scott Pruitt on environmental protection?  Geez...they were all fossil fuel industry factotums who actively sought to roll back Clean Air and Clean Water protection in the U.S.!

Those are your 'Phants...

If Jack and Bobby Kennedy could see what the Republican Party has become in the 21st century, they would roll over in their graves!

So would Dwight Eisenhower.

But more importantly, do you have any old Frank Zappa records?

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But more importantly, do you have any old Frank Zappa records?

W can well speak for himself.  But maybe more important is do you appreciate Zappa's sarcasm?

I dare you all to watch this all the way through and not laugh. 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Ron Bulman

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 12/9/2021 at 11:36 PM, Greg Doudna said:

agree with that analysis. Someone earlier asked who would JFK support today? That is just obvious: he would be a Democrat supporting Biden. Trump is like General Edwin Walker, and the supporters of Trump are the same kind of people who supported General Walker. There is your right-wing populism. Or the later populist George Wallace as another parallel to populist Trump today. Pox on both houses logic: Kennedy vs. General Edwin Walker. Kennedy vs. George Wallace ... all the same ... except no, it is not all the same. In terms of the major parties, even small differences have big consequences.

I agree completely Greg. Forgive me if I segue, but I think Ben wants to see Tucker Carlson as the dashing 21st century JFK. The continual harping on Fox News about  either the tyranny of the government "deep state" or the ineffectiveness of the government (figure that one out!) is really the most stark  corporate state messaging among the major networks, though masked in a phony populism. The goal is to influence public opinion,toward a long range goal of stripping  down the size of government to a time period before we were born and 2)privatize whatever functions of the government that are left. Now he gets sucked in by Marco Rubio?

watch Tucker get punked and come undone in this segment with Rutger Bregman

 

 

The Republican strategy is so obvious it's hard to believe it's worked for so long.

"Government doesn't work so. Vote for me!" Then problems inevitably happen and their response is "see told you government doesn't work. Vote for me!" They have a built in excuse for every failure they have.

They've literally campaigned for 50 years on the idea that if they get elected they will do nothing and a lot of voters are okay with it because they are convinced government is the problem. When it's so obvious they are the reason government is the problem, because they literally campaign on making government worse.

Then a problem happens, a government responds poorly and their voters sit there with a suprised Pikachu face and go, must be the Democrats!

 

Ok, Some guy I read on twitter

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

W can well speak for himself.  But maybe more important is do you appreciate Zappa's sarcasm?

I dare you all to watch this all the way through and not laugh. 

Despite prevailing sentiments, I am human, and I laughed. 

[Kirk Gallaway]

14 hours ago, Bill Fite said:

I always liked another smart guy's summary of the 2 parties:

"The Republicans stand for nothing but unmitigated greed and evil wrapped in the American flag.

The Democrats stand for nothing but wanting to be Republicans"

That guy was the late great Frank Zappa.

Bill: I'm a old Zappa fan, been to a few concerts, , but I couldn't find that quote directly anywhere, though it does sound like his writing style..But here are other ones I did find.

We often are explaining to Ben the dangers of "false equivalency", but a warning must go out to all those who would  use our literary heroes, (just because they have none of their own ) to further their own evil ends!

 

"1993- There's an incredible rise in racist and fascist attitudes here, most of them being helped along by the Republican Party

 

 

"With a big old lie, and a flag and a pie, and a bomb and bible, most folks are just liable to buy any lie, anyplace, anytime."<br><br>When the lie gets so big, and the pockets so deep, and the facts get forgotten, the Republican trick can be played out again. People please tell me when, we'll be rid of these men." Frank Zappa, circa, 1988<b

****

This one starts basically the same as yours, Bill.

Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons.”

******

You may have meant this, there is that comparison but wanting to sound as Republican as possible.

 

"I've come to the conclusion that there's only one party in this country and it's divided into two parts: Republicans and Republican wannabes. Republicans stand for evil, corruption, manipulation, greed- everything that Americans think is okay after being conditioned to it during the eighties. Republicans stand for all the values that Americans now hold dear. Plus they have more balloons than God, and for a nation raised on cartoons, that tells you something. Anybody with balloons, they're okay. They don't tell you what kind of crippled people had to blow those suckers up. The Democrats have no agenda, and when they speak on any topic, they want to sound as Republican as possible while still finding a way to retain the pork.

 

*****

Republican is fine, if your a millionaire. Democrats is fair, if all you own is what you wear. Neither of them’s really right, cause neither of them care.

*****

 

 

We pretend to be a free society, and we pretend to be an adult society, but if you look at the facts, our news is just as contrived and controlled as  Pravda.

 

 

Politics is a branch of the entertainment industry

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Boston Globe, 12/11/21

"LONDON — A British court ruled Friday that Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States to face charges that could result in decades of jail time, reversing a lower-court decision in the long-running case against the embattled WikiLeaks founder.

The ruling was a victory, at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Assange begun under the Trump administration. But Assange will seek to appeal the decision to Britain’s Supreme Court, according to his legal team.

The Justice Department’s decision to charge Assange under the Espionage Act in connection with obtaining and publishing secret government documents has raised novel First Amendment issues and alarmed advocates of media freedom. But because he has been fighting extradition, those questions have not been litigated, and his transfer to the United States could set off a momentous constitutional battle."

 

---30---

Mr. Tweedledee, meet Mr. Tweedledum. 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

AT HIS DEATH, BOB DOLE FEARED FOR THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
                                                     BY
                                 ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
————————————————————————————————————————————
The death of Bob Dole has taken from us the kind of public servant democracies depend upon if they are to survive, and thrive.  Today, when Democrats and Republicans tend to view themselves as enemies rather than joint participants in the democratic enterprise of governing, the very future of our society is open to question.

The Founding Fathers feared that the democratic society they were creating might not last.  John Adams declared that, “Democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.  There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

At his death, Bob Dole feared for America’s future. He left behind an important statement, headlined, “America needs unity to rediscover its greatness.”  He recalled that, “Many times during my time as majority leader I would step out on my office balcony overlooking the National Mall and be reminded of what made my journey possible.  Facing me were monuments to our nation’s first commander in chief , the author of our Declaration of Independence, and the president who held our union together.  In the distance were the countless graves of those who gave their lives so that we could live free.  That inspiring view came back to me as I watched  the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol…I thought about the symbol of our democracy consumed by anger, hatred and violence.”

To survive, in Dole’s view, we need bipartisanship and a willingness to compromise, but something beyond this as well:  “I cannot pretend that I have not been a loyal champion for my party, but I always served my country best when I did so first and foremost as an American.  I fought for veterans benefits not as a Republican but as someone who witnessed the heroism of our service members firsthand.  I advocated for those with disabilities not as a member of the GOP but as someone who personally understood the limitations of a world without basic accommodations.  I stood up for those going hungry not as a leader in my party but as someone who had seen too many folks sweat through a hard day’s work without being able to put dinner on the table.”

The narrow partisanship of the current moment, the refusal to compromise, is something Bob Dole hopes we will move beyond:  “When we prioritize principles over party and humanity over personal legacy, we accomplish far more as a nation. By leading with a shared faith in one another, we become America at its best:  a beacon of hope, a source of comfort in crisis, a shield against those who threaten freedom….Our nation has certainly faced periods of division, but at the end of the day, we have always found ways to come together.”

At his funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral, Dole was eulogized by both President Biden, with whom he served in the Senate for many years, and the former Democratic leader of the Senate, Tom Daschle.  Discussing Dole, Daschle recalled, “Bob liked to share a story from when he was first elected to Congress and a reporter asked what his agenda would be.  He said, ‘I’m going to sit and watch for a couple of days, and then I’ll stand up for what’s right.’  That’s exactly what he did.  He stood up for minorities early in his career when he broke party ranks and supported the landmark  Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.  He stood up for the elderly and worked with Democratic Sen.Daniel Patrick Moynihan (N.Y.) to save Social Security.  He stood up for the young and worked with my fellow South Dakotan George McGovern on nutrition assistance.  He stood up for the disabled and worked with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on the Americans With Disabilities Act…His life was a testament to Will Rogers’s truth:  that the things that make us human—-the laughs we share and the burdens we bear——can make us great.”

Bob Dole’s death came at a time when democracy is not only being increasingly challenged in our own country, but appears to be in retreat throughout the world.  Freedom House reports that 2020 was the 15th consecutive year of freedom declining around the world.  “Nearly 75 per cent of the world’s population lived in a country that faced deterioration last year,” Freedom House found.  This year—-with Tunisia, Myanmar, Sudan and Afghanistan all becoming more tyrannical—-is no better.  Things could soon become worse as Russia threatens to invade Ukraine and China threatens Taiwan.  As Anne Applebaum writes in The Atlantic, “The Bad Guys are winning.”

In our own country, democracy is also being challenged.  Our political parties are not working together to solve the nation’s problems.  Bipartisanship and compromise, essential ingredients if democracy is to work, are viewed with contempt by many.  In a Pew Research Center poll  this year, only 17 per cent of the people in 16 democratic countries expressed confidence in the United States as a role model for democracy.

Bob Dole concluded his final statement with the hope that America would rediscover the values it once held dear:  “I do have hope that our country will rediscover its greatness.  Perhaps it is the optimism that comes from spending 98 years as a proud American.  I grew up in what others have called the Greatest Generation.  Together, we put an end to poopoo tyranny.  Our nation confronted Jim Crow, split the atom, eliminated the anguish of polio, planted our flag on the moon, and tore down the Berlin Wall.  Rising above partisanship, we made historic gains in feeding the hungry and housing the homeless.  To make a more perfect union, we swung open the doors of economic opportunity for women who were ready to rise to their fullest potential and leave shattered glass ceilings behind them.”

Bob Dole also brought humor to our political life.  President Biden, who served with Dole in the U.S. Senate for 25 years, joked about Dole being the deciding vote to continue funding Amtrak, which Biden used to commute between Delaware and Washington, D.C.  Dole was asked, , “Why, in God’s name, did you vote to continue to fund Amtrak?”  He replied, “If I didn’t, Biden would stay overnight and cause more trouble.”  Biden says, “Dole would have made it  as a stand-up comedian.”

Our current political life does not reflect the values Bob Dole represented so well.  He lived in an era, not very long ago, when American politics worked.  Let us hope that we will rediscover the values that he represented so well.
                                                   ##

[Matt Allison]

Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone:

 

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

Assange will be extradited? Good. He deserves it for this alone:

 

The quote you share was featured in an article by Julia Ioffe and published in The Atlantic in November 2017. The correspondence the article was based on was conducted by individuals at the Wikileaks organization, not Assange personally. In fact, Assange’s internet connectivity had been cut months before the communications in question. So what’s your trip, Matt? Why do you seem to support, if not relish, the prospect of a life-sentence in an American Super-Max prison for a journalist / publisher who never worked inside the United States, based on, in your formulation, quotations he was not even personally responsible for? I thought your utterly naive comment that Powell’s 2003 UN misrepresentation was simply his being “fooled” by “contemporaneous intelligence” was peak credulity, but here you expose a disturbingly casual sadistic streak as well.

Do you know that The Atlantic piece from which the quote you provide appeared, was ripped by other journalists for deliberately editing materials to mislead the readers of the story as to the “actual meaning and purpose of the exchanges with Donald Jr. remain at least somewhat open to interpretation.”   https://reason.com/2017/11/14/did-the-atlantic-prove-wikileaks-knew-it/

As analyst Caitlin Johnstone pointed out, Ioffe edited one of the messages to infer that Wikileaks was seeking to deflect attention from its self-perception as a “pro-Trump pro-Russia” source - an inference which immediately was widely re-tweeted and reported in the US mainstream media - when in fact the organization was noting that the inference was instead something “the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.”  Big difference.

Journalistic malpractice: “If you exclude important information while communicating that you have not, you are blatantly lying to your readers.”

“WikiLeaks comes off looking weird and sleazy in a way that will likely damage its reputation even further than the mainstream media campaign to smear the outlet already has. WikiLeaks is seen asking for favors Trump never fulfilled, making recommendations Trump Jr. didn't act upon, and asking for leaks Trump Jr. never gave them, which when you step back and think about it are actually fairly normal things for a leak outlet to do, all things considered.”

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f

Julian Assange published factual information which revealed high crimes and misdemeanours of elite persons who act with impunity under cover of official secrecy. He did a service for all of us, and will unfortunately have his head metaphorically mounted on a pike as an example to any who might think to follow. This travesty of justice demeans and cheapens our society’s heritage and legal traditions, even as it  empowers the very worst amongst us. It will be a historic marker for the rapid degeneration into the end stage of whatever it is we have become. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

Julian Assange’s Hatred of Hillary Clinton Was No Secret. His Advice to Donald Trump Was.

Some longtime supporters of Julian Assange were appalled when his secret correspondence with the Trump campaign was revealed this week.

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/wikileaks-julian-assange-donald-trump-jr-hillary-clinton/

November 17, 2017

Excerpt

The revelation that WikiLeaks secretly offered help to Donald Trump’s campaign, in a series of private Twitter messages sent to the candidate’s son Donald Trump Jr., gave ammunition to the group’s many detractors and also sparked anger from some longtime supporters of the organization and its founder, Julian Assange.

One of the most high-profile dissenters was journalist Barrett Brown, whose crowdsourced investigations of hacked corporate documents later posted on WikiLeaks led to a prison sentence.

Brown had a visceral reaction to the news, first reported by The Atlantic, that WikiLeaks had been advising the Trump campaign. In a series of tweets and Facebook videos, Brown accused Assange of having compromised “the movement” to expose corporate and government wrongdoing by acting as a covert political operative.

Brown explained that he had defended WikiLeaks for releasing emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee, “because it was an appropriate thing for a transparency org to do.” But, he added, “working with an authoritarian would-be leader to deceive the public is indefensible and disgusting.”

He was particularly outraged by an Oct. 21, 2016 message, in which Assange had appealed to Trump Jr. to let WikiLeaks publish one or more of his father’s tax returns in order to make his group’s attacks on Hillary Clinton seem less biased. “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” the Assange-controlled @Wikileaks account suggested. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.”

Edited December 12, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

Many independent people wondered if Trump was the least bad option in recent times. 

Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. 

Evidently, the Biden Administration wants Assange in prison for revealing Hillary's e-mails, which revealed how the Clinton wing of the Donk party stole the 2016 primary election from Sanders. 

I am very uncomfortable with prosecuting, let alone incarcerating, people who publish documents that come into their hands. The signal is sent: Do not publish anything, unless you can afford lawyers and you might go to prison anyway.  

All citizens lose in this scenario, now becoming the norm.  

And that is the face of the modern Donk party: They want to control the news, they want gatekeepers, and they have made little secret about it.  

If you like throwing Assange into prison, then you like having the "news" as curated by the Donks and 'Phants.

Good luck with that. 

I would hope that people who are deeply knowledgeable about the JFKA, and the related control and manipulation of the media, would regard prosecuting Assange as an abomination.  

 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Ben:Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. 

And Ben doesn't go into it. Does that answer anything or absolve anybody? It's only fueling a case for Assange's extreme bias!

What W. was talking about is what I had also heard. Assange approached Donald Trump Jr. for Wiki leaks to ask for a year of Donald Trump's tax returns to dampen the perception that wiki leaks was acting as a tool for Donald Trump. If Jeff has is that Assange internet connectivity was cut off during that period as well, that strikes me as very weak as I'm sure Assange is adept at communicating through any number of non traceable channels as well.

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is a gift that keeps giving . We now find out that Tuckers son Buckley (another aristocratic twist,father like son,  a son with a surname for a first name!) was inside the Capitol on !/6! Hence there is an untold connection in Tucker Carlson's 3 part series, Patriot Purge (which Ben was recommending for us all to see)using his position to propagandize reasons for his son's presence which he has been quiet about for 11 months!

Will this in any way, effect the Fox Nation or Ben's perception of Carlson? Probably not!

https://www.salon.com/2021/12/11/tucker-carlson-says-son-was-in-us-capitol-building-on-jan-6/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tucker-carlson-son-capitol-building-riot-b1973389.html

 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Ben:Assange has an encyclopedia of legitimate reasons to loathe, detest and revile the Donks and 'Phants in the US. 

And Ben doesn't go into it. Does that answer anything or absolve anybody? It's only fueling a case for Assange's extreme bias!

What W. was talking about is what I had also heard. Assange approached Donald Trump Jr. for Wiki leaks to ask for a year of Donald Trump's tax returns to dampen the perception that wiki leaks was acting as a tool for Donald Trump. If Jeff has is that Assange internet connectivity was cut off during that period as well, that strikes me as very weak as I'm sure Assange is adept at communicating through any number of non traceable channels as well.

Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson is a gift that keeps giving . We now find out that Tuckers son Buckley (another aristocratic twist,father like son,  a son with a surname for a first name!) was inside the Capitol on !/6! Hence there is an untold connection in Tucker Carlson's 3 part series, Patriot Purge (which Ben was recommending for us all to see)using his position to propagandize reasons for his son's presence which he has been quiet about for 11 months!

Will this in any way, effect the Fox Nation or Ben's perception of Carlson? Probably not!

https://www.salon.com/2021/12/11/tucker-carlson-says-son-was-in-us-capitol-building-on-jan-6/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tucker-carlson-son-capitol-building-riot-b1973389.html

 

That's wild Kirk.  Carlson's son Inside the House on 1/6.  Shouldn't he be prosecuted for breaking and entering at the least, of a Federal facility?  A felony?  

But he'll probably become a darling of the far right like Rittenhouse.  Give him an AR-15 as an award for his initiative. 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Ron Bulman

[Kirk Gallaway]

Ron, I'm not completely sure what to make of it, because his son does work for a congressman. So where was his son and why has Carlson kept it a secret for so long? It should be public knowledge. You would have thought if Carlson didn't reveal it, someone would have asked him by now.

But he does get by not answering a lot of things, once when asked if he was covid vaccinated he absurdly responded by asking the questioner "who are all the people you've had sex with?", as if there's any comparison in questions.

This is weird, i just got finished watching a basketball game, and on ABC,they're playing a 90 minute long, 2021 documentary called "JFK unsolved". It does show Hoover's call to LBJ, and a clip  of Josiah Thompson and I see it's not just a revamp of a dozen or so pro WR film documentaries I've seen before. I got to see where this goes.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Kirk Gallaway]

"JFK unsolved" Warren report is a coverup,Now we have Vince Salandria meeting Josiah Thompson. We're behind the Grassy Knoll now, Holland Bowers. If anybody is on the West Coast, turn on ABC.