If there's one thing Donald Trump wants you to know about Donald Trump, it's that Donald Trump likes to surround himself with nothing but the best people... just top quality, all the way. People like former Apprentice contestant turned inexplicably vicious minion Omarosa "Lil Bow Down" Manigault, whom Business Insider reports has recently taken to signing her correspondence as "The Honorable Omarosa Manigault". Yer old pal Jerky can't help but wonder how long it will be before we get to see these hyperbolic honorifics evolve into even more ornate forms? I'm guessing it won't be too long before we're dealing with "The Right Honorable Reverend Doctor Omarosa Manigault Lucifer Trump Esquire, the Third"... and I can't hardly wait!
I don't know about you guys, but when I picture "all the best people", the first thing that comes to mind is Trump supporters! Which brings us to the story of long-time Trump supporter (and Traditionalist Youth Network founder) Matthew Heimbach, who has been flitting about the periphery of infamy for years now, with the latest incident being when he was filmed violently shoving and shrieking at a black woman at a Trump rally... an incident for which he is now being sued. This being America that we're talking about, Heimbach reacted to being sued in the traditional, American way: by launching a lawsuit of his own... against Donald Trump! Why sue his hero? Well, it turns out Heimbach claims he assaulted that black lady (from behind, while she was texting) "in self defense" and "pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President." Only time will tell if the "Donald Told Me To" defense works, thus setting an intriguing--and, for Trump, financially devastating--precedent. Fingers crossed, y'all!
Next up in this parade of all the best people, we've got Hartford's own Steven Marks! This plucky go-getter was recently caught red-handed painting threatening anti-Trump graffiti , including "Bernie Sanders 2020!" and "LEFT is BEST!" and (this is the best one) "KILL TRUMP!" all over a bunch of elementary school equipment. "But wait", I can hear you saying, "I thought this entry was about Trump supporters!" Well, it turns out our clever friend Steven is a Trump supporter! And what's more, he was "only acting out of anger towards liberals and they are breaking major laws every day and being disrespectful towards our government"! See how it all makes sense when you just stop and think about it? What with all those thousands of phony self-inflicted hate hoaxes that the liberals have made up since Trump was elected, someone needed to step in and help even out the false flag hate crime deficit! We salute you, Steven! Good luck in court!
Okay, so it's probably true that the three examples selected above may not speak as highly of Trump's sycophants and fan base as he might have hoped... but unlike many of the people on this list of alleged donors to Trump's inauguration fund, they at least have the somewhat significant advantage of being actual, flesh and blood human beings. Our good friends at The Palmer Report are trying to make sense out of this mess, but it's one heck of a big mess to sort out.
You can almost hear that Crypt Keeper cackle...
Before I go, I've got one last question for you. Why do so many Republicans look like the family patriarchs from Southern Gothic horror movies? You know the type... those surreptitiously decadent, genteel types who turn out to be part of a long family lineage of incestuous baby-eating Satan-worshiping serial killers? I mean, just look at Mitch McConnell up there. I'd wager a good chunk of change that there's a trunk full of blood-spattered baby clothes in the attic of that fucker's Kentucky plantation house.
Here I thought that, with the unambiguous murder of Philando Castile in a suburb of St Paul, Minnesota, one year ago tomorrow, America had finally seen an incident so unambiguously awful, so unforgivably egregious, so well and completely documented, perpetrated against such an obviously undeserving victim, that nobody would ever try to justify what happened, or rationalize what was done to him.
Of course, I was wrong.
First, as if on cue, came the usual suspects: Youtube "race realists" and other assorted trolls and cowards from the alt-right fever swamps. They mocked Castile's grieving mother, questioned his girlfriend's motives for live-streaming the incident's aftermath, and even speculated about Castile's guilty looking ears. Some claimed Castile was a Crip (he wasn't), that his gun permit wasn't valid (it was), and on and on, one false accusation after another, and countless speculations that were all proven wrong upon the public release of the police dash cam video in the days after the end of the trial of officer Jeronimo Yanez was completed.
Ah yes... the trial. Again, call me naive--or maybe blame my white privilege--but that verdict came as something of a shock to me. For Yanez to be declared not guilty seemed impossible, just as the thought that he would not be facing any repercussions for his actions now seems perverse.
But not, apparently, to some of my more conservative friends. Of course, racist online shitlord trolls like the ones described above are one thing; they were always going to do their rancid thing. But when some of my lifelong friends, one of whom also happens to be a law enforcement officer, start hemming and hawing and offering up excuses and "yeah buts", it breaks my fucking heart.
"But Jerky," my LEO friend insisted, "it's not like YOU have years of training in the proper Use of Force!" Frankly, I don't think you need years of training in use of force to recognize a murder--or an abject physical coward--when you see one. Not to mention the fact that other experts in the field have said that Yanez' behavior was "objectively unreasonable". It really shouldn't have to come to that. We have eyes. We have brains. Goddamnit, we have our common humanity. Yanez should never have been issued a weapon, and he definitely should be serving time for manslaughter... at the very least.
Castile is driving home from getting groceries in the early evening with his girlfriend and her four year old daughter. He gets pulled over for some reason (something that's happened to him dozens of times before), and he immediately and politely informs the officer that he has both a handgun and a permit to carry it. He is then asked for his license and registration, and as he goes to retrieve those items from his wallet, officer Yanez bellows out: "DON'T GO FOR YOUR GUN!!!" Castile, nonplussed, insists "I'm not, sir-" At which point Yanez, heedless of the safety of all three occupants of the vehicle, empties his fucking gun into Castile's soon to be corpse.
The rest, as they say, is history, Facebook live-stream style.
During the trial, as part of his defense, Yanez claimed that he smelled marijuana coming from the car, and part of what put him on edge was the idea that the couple might have smoked weed with a child in the vehicle. If they were willing to do that, Yanez figured, then they were capable of anything. This, from the man who emptied his gun into that self-same car. And the jury, god damn them, bought it.
According to one juror, Yanez' account and the fact that Castile's girlfriend "didn't seem credible" were the deciding factors. One hopes in vain that these jurors will one day have to face a higher justice over the role they played in this injustice.
I think it's worth pointing out, by the way, that the violent crime rate, from ALL demographics, is near an all-time low. Furthermore, a few high profile incidents notwithstanding, police work is safer than ever. Which makes Yanez' cowardice--and much of the rhetoric surrounding so-called "law and order" political issues--all the more galling and grotesque.
Listen... I'm a realist. I recognize and accept the fact that we, as a society, have to grant a certain degree of leeway to the people who we task with enforcing the laws. And I understand that the problems of abuse of authority, increased police militarization, and the disturbing rise of "for profit policing" go beyond the issue of race. But racial animus is undeniably at the heart of so many of these problems, and that's something we're now able to witness for ourselves, thanks to the spread of cheap, portable video technology revealing that Black folks were not, in fact, exaggerating about this shit. At this point, after all the evidence that we've seen, to argue that there isn't a serious problem with the way police interact with the black community, you have to be blind, either physically or spiritually.
Anyway, I'd like to wrap things up with something that a friend of mine who goes by the nickname Whop-ology wrote on the day of the Yanez verdict. He wishes to remain anonymous for the time being, but I can reveal that he is an African American husband and father who is gainfully employed and a member of the armed forces. I'd never seen him post anything of this nature before, and when I read it, it floored me. He didn't give his work a title, but for now, let's call it "The Verdict".
Just rap nigger
Just sing nigger
Just dance nigger
Don't think you have rights nigger
Don't think you are right nigger
Don't think you are white nigger
Just don't be caught trying to fight nigger
Just don't be caught doing what's right nigger
We just don't care about your life nigger
We just don't care if you are polite nigger
Just pull up your pants nigger
Just play sports nigger
We just don't want you here nigger
We just don't want you to breathe nigger
Why don't you stop calling each other niggers nigger
Why don't you leave nigger
Every verdict will be the same nigger
Every murder your blame nigger
Look at Chicago nigger
Look, that's not our problem nigger....
Yea he was stopped because of the shape of his nose nigger
Stop being nosy nigger
They heard the voice recording, it played for the jury nigger
The one showing he calmly followed directions saying he legally carried a gun in his clothes
Continuing with the task of clearing off my scratch-pad of stuff that I've wanted to blog about, here is a selection of "Suggested Readings" that I'd collected in the last two months and failed to pass along. I originally had a ton more links to share, but some--like this story about Trump cancelling a long-standing White House tradition of celebrating the end of Ramadan with a special dinner--haven't aged well, which means that what's left has already gone through a winnowing of sorts, so you know they're all top quality reads, chock-a-block with important, usable information, or as in the case of The Onion's "Trump Papers" project, just funny as all get out. So let's get started, shall we? - Jerky
Graeme Wood's in-depth profile of alt.right poster-boy Richard Spencer for The Atlantic, cheekily entitled "His Kampf", makes for pretty compelling reading. The fact that Wood and Spencer were high-school classmates in Dallas gives the interview sections a certain degree of intimacy, making the reader feel like they're sitting across the table from Spencer, sharing a sincere, if somewhat distasteful, conversation. Of note is the fact that Wood interviewed Spencer twice for this profile, once before the infamous incident wherein Spencer was punched by a masked "antifa" while being interviewed for Australian TV, and once after. This brush with real-world consequences seemed to take a bit of the bombast out of him, perhaps even dampening his evident glee in the wake of Trump's ascendancy:
“Am I just going to be harassed for the rest of my life? Living in Whitefish is quite difficult,” he said, due to protests. “I thought there would be a little bit of anonymity” in Alexandria. Now he could not walk around without fear.
He said he was going to change his haircut—I’d remarked that it made him stand out—but insisted that fashion was the reason. “I think the fascist haircut has peaked. Aesthetically, I think it can definitely be improved on. Maybe I’ll try a Tom Cruise, from Mission: Impossible IV.”
He sounded vulnerable, for the first time since he’d said the St. Mark’s campaign had wounded him. “I have a right as a citizen to walk the streets and not be attacked, and I have the right to be protected,” he complained.
Spencer was obviously right when he said he should not be assaulted. But we both could taste the irony in the situation. If he hadn’t caught himself, he might have started talking about his “human right” not to be brutalized with impunity. Instead he recovered, and used the irony to his advantage. “The fact that they are excusing violence against Richard Spencer inherently means that they believe that there’s a state of exception, where we can use violence,” he said. “I think they’re actually kind of right.”
“War is politics by other means and politics is war by other means,” he said. “We don’t all want the same thing. And that’s why I think there is a kind of state of war going on.”
It's a long profile, jam-packed with references to everything from Nietzsche to William F. Buckley Jr to more obscure figures in the history of Far Right thought. It also covers a lot of ground that probably didn't need covering, such as Spencer's short-lived foray into the world of drama club geekdom. However, it is the most complete portrait that we currently have of a man who, regardless of what we may think of him, now finds himself in the position of being a significant though leader in what passes for America's political culture. So stick with it. The concluding paragraphs are well worth the slog.
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Okay, so now that we've got THAT dirty business out of the way, why not unwind by spending a little time with The Onion's new large-form project, The Trump Documents? Check out this video explaining the incredible, expansive trove of classified documents and secret recordings that the nation's most trusted news source has procured from a whistleblower from within the White House itself...
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And it's right back into the darkness, with this Washington Post expose about a secret back-channel to the Kremlinbeing set up by Blackwater (aka Academi, aka Xe Services, aka Evil Incorporated) founder, Trump co-conspirator, and wannabe Bond villain Erik Prince, one of the shadiest among the vast armies of Shadow People currently casting their darkness upon the land.
***
Meanwhile, as the Deep State's rogue New Fascist International faction is poised to capitalize upon its current situational advantage in such a way as to cripple and eliminate any competition, thus permanently consolidating its position as the sole meaningful power at the levers of societal control, the DumDum Left is doing everything in its tragicomically degraded power to make it as easy as possible for them to achieve that goal. As the late, lamented cultural critic Mark Fisher wrote a few years back in his increasingly relevant essay Exiting the Vampire Castle:
‘Left-wing’ Twitter can often be a miserable, dispiriting zone. Earlier this year, there were some high-profile twitterstorms, in which particular left-identifying figures were ‘called out’ and condemned. What these figures had said was sometimes objectionable; but nevertheless, the way in which they were personally vilified and hounded left a horrible residue: the stench of bad conscience and witch-hunting moralism. The reason I didn’t speak out on any of these incidents, I’m ashamed to say, was fear. The bullies were in another part of the playground. I didn’t want to attract their attention to me.
One of the things that broke me out of this depressive stupor was going to the People’s Assembly in Ipswich, near where I live. ... The atmosphere was anti-racist and anti-sexist, but refreshingly free of the paralysing feeling of guilt and suspicion which hangs over left-wing twitter like an acrid, stifling fog.
Then there was Russell Brand. ... For some of us, Brand’s forensic take-down of [BBC anchor Jeremy] Paxman was intensely moving, miraculous; I couldn’t remember the last time a person from a working class background had been given the space to so consummately destroy a class ‘superior’ using intelligence and reason. This wasn’t Johnny Rotten swearing at Bill Grundy – an act of antagonism which confirmed rather than challenged class stereotypes. Brand had outwitted Paxman – and the use of humour was what separated Brand from the dourness of so much ‘leftism’.
Brand makes people feel good about themselves; whereas the moralising left specialises in making people feed bad, and is not happy until their heads are bent in guilt and self-loathing. The moralising left quickly ensured that the story was not about Brand’s extraordinary breach of the bland conventions of mainstream media ‘debate’, nor about his claim that revolution was going to happen. ... For the moralisers, the dominant story was to be about Brand’s personal conduct – specifically his sexism. In the febrile McCarthyite atmosphere fermented by the moralising left, remarks that could be construed as sexist mean that Brand is a sexist, which also meant that he is a misogynist. Cut and dried, finished, condemned.
Sorry for the lengthy, and much-edited, sampling of Fischer's essay, here, but I feel that his anecdote about the DumDum Left's reaction to Brand's utterly harmless use of such 'gendered" terms of endearment as "bird" and "dearie" perfectly sums up an attitude that we've all encountered among some ostensible allies, and will thus have the ring of familiarity for much of my readers, as left-leaning and liberal (in the New World sense of that word) as they may otherwise be. Fisher, who generally wrote about culture and the arts, committed suicide earlier this year. He was 48 years old. Read Consider reading the Vampire Castle to be your good deed for the day.
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"Quick! Save his life so we can torture him for a decade!"
For all the outrage being expressed in certain circles over the Canadian government settling with former child soldier and Guantanamo Bay torture survivor Omar Khadr for ten and a half million dollars in recognition of their long-term failure to intervene on Khadr's behalf while his basic rights were being trampled over and over again for over a decade, one wonders whether any of these people have ever stopped and examined the so-called evidence against Khadr in the first place, which is basically a ridiculous tissue of lies.
***
Being a bit of a scribbler, himself, yer old pal Jerky was tickled by the howls of butthurt outrage generated by The Guardian editorial cartoonist Martin Rowson's savage take on the Finsbury Park terror attack, in which a van was driven into a crowd of Muslims by a man shouting Islamophobic slurs. For the cartoon in question, reproduced above, Rowson simply slapped the logos of London's two most notoriously Islamophobic daily newspapers, The Sun and The Daily Mail, onto the side of the vehicular murder weapon. And, boy oh boy, those papers did NOT react well. But it seems to me you'd have to be willfully blind to think that THIS wouldn't one day bear some rotten fruit...
"Next to Fred Trump, Roy Cohn was the single greatest influence in Donald’s life. And Roy is incandescent evil. I would sit with him, and it was enough to make you rush back to church, the Satanic feeling that he would give you. That was Donald’s mentor and constant sidekick, who represented all five of the organized crime families in the City of New York."
— Investigative journalist and long-time Trump investigator/foe Wayne Barrett, who conveniently passed away this November, shortly after the New Yorker ran an article suggesting that we were lucky to have him around to help guide us through the wide-awake nightmare of Trump's ascending to the White House. Oh well... so much for that.
The chief problem with “alternative history” is that for those unacquainted with the best scholarship on the subject, with no yardstick to measure the truthfulness or accuracy of the new historical perspective, the chance of entering an imaginative space dominated by the unreal is all too likely. A journey through the unreal is an unreal journey; the blind begin to lead the blind. In the case of conspiracy theories, the results of exploitation of history may be quite deadly. For many malcontents, history is a powerful spur to destruction; a fair account, on the other hand, helps us understand a little more. If you want absolute certainties, you’ll be prepared to believe anything.
- Tobias Churton
Gnostic Philosophy
(2003)
Folks, a whole lot of stuff has passed by without yer old pal Jerky bothering to comment on it over the past couple months. This is partly due to a certain degree of outrage overload on my part, combined with a feeling of helplessness in the face of what I have always understood, deep down, to be my own absolute flailing impotence against what is daily revealing itself to be a rapidly metastasizing, world historic evil.
I mean, let's face it. I had no power back in the 'aughts, when I enjoyed a daily reading audience measured in the hundreds of thousands; what hope do I dare harbor now that my readership rarely scrapes past the low three digits? In the face of the Trump administration, and the vast and well remunerated army of boot-licking, brown-nosing sycophants who populate the increasingly septic "conservative movement" mass-media juggernaut, I know that me and my little hobby blog are nothing. Useless. Tits on a bull.
And yet, and still... this urge to witness. And to document said witnessing. To note particular instances of grievous trespass, and to share with my few remaining readers my take on these events. Even when my take is limited to humorous asides, or offhand comments. Even when it's all I can do to point at something and declare in a voice barely raised, but noticeably sad, disappointed, and incredulous: "Do you guys see what I'm seeing?!"
Oh, I suppose this all may come in handy for someone, on some future day, once they've got the power back up and running and have scavenged a sufficient quantity of foodstuffs to last them through the next Purge Month and they want to check out a virtual time capsule of what it was like back in the days before The Big League Kablooey, to be one among the growing cohort of terrified observers for whom being good at pattern recognition and having a broad knowledge of historical precedents were enough to make them Cassandras in their own time.
I mean, for Pete's sake, we're living at a time when the so-called "alternative" media is full of stories about the rising threat of left-wing violence when in fact the Far Right holds a decades-long near monopoly on such tactics. Meanwhile (and not at all unconnected), the National Rifle Association is playing a whole new tune. They've gone from saying they need guns to fight some future hypothetical tyrannical government, to saying they need them to fight anyone who criticizes an increasingly tyrannical government, here and now.
Of course, I'm sure that my speculating as to whether this overnight change in the NRA's posture might have anything to do with the President's race... that would just be more evidence of my liberal, leftist, postmodernist, cultural Marxist race-baiting ways. I mean, just because the NRA have followed in the the smoldering hoof-prints of the Alt-Right, Far Right, and White Nationalist movements to become big fans of Vladimir Putin's Russia--to the point where their leadership is in bed with Russian mobsters--that isn't necessarily a de facto admission that the NRA is, at its core, a profoundly racist and anti-democratic institution... is it? I mean, maybe they're just really big fans of Russia's super-strict gun control legislation!
Okay, so it's probably not that, but surely their newfound love for Russia is based on something other than the New Fascist International's re-branding of the once and future USSR as "the Most Powerful White Power in the World"... right? If you've been able to figure out this paradox, please leave the answer in the comments below, or email it to me, because I gotta tell you, I'm finding this one to be a real puzzlement.
Okay, so, in the coming days, I'll be playing catch-up on some of the stories and events I wanted to comment on, but didn't, and sharing with you some of the more important and illuminating (in my opinion) news reports, research studies, and think pieces that I've come across in that time.
The Second Amendment prevents the federal government from completely abolishing official state militias - nothing more, nothing less. Nothing in the Constitution prevents the federal or state governments, or both, from outlawing the formation of storm trooper squads on U.S. soil and limiting gun ownership to members of the National Guard. Members of right-wing paramilitary militias, of course, might claim a "natural right of revolution," of the sort invoked by the American patriots of 1776 (and by the Confederates in 1860-61), There is no constitutional right to revolution, however. There is, of course, a provision for instances where armed bands amass weapons and attempt to overthrow the federal government. The Constitution permits the death penalty for treason.
Particularly when they have Andy Kindler on to engage in some light-hearted mockery of FOX News and all the usual suspects. So, as you all await some fresh, original content from yours truly, please enjoy this Casual Friday edition of the Majority Report alongside yer old pal Jerky!
Author Jared Sexton took to his Twitter account to discuss the origins of Trump's recent, somewhat disturbing Tweet, in which an old video of himself on a wrestling show is altered in such a way as to show him physically attacking an embodiment of CNN. It's funny, right? Ha-ha. Not coming from the President of the United States of America it isn't. And not coming from where it came from. Read on to see what I mean. Oh! But first, here's a short take from CNN and Carl Bernstein (which includes the video in question, in case you haven't seen it yet). - Jerky
Been going through the history of the guy who made that meme Trump sent out. It's all just overtly ugly, racist, sexist rhetoric.
These are the people who make up the alt-right, and the ones who are powering Trump and feeding off him.
Everything they say either further racism or promotes unthinkable violence. They openly fantasize about killing people.
Trump's continued endorsement only fuels this fantasy. They talk all the time about wanting a civil war, about killing liberals.
This isn't just internet boasting. This is the beginning of something really, really, REALLY bad. And Trump is adding to it daily.
If you don't believe it, go spend some time on Reddit. It's seething with this stuff and the people are unhinged. It won't stay there
This is already spilling over into the real world, in Portland, in Berkeley. It's not going to stop there.
These people are confusing the real world and the online one, and that violent rhetoric is going to find an outlet.
We're in a lot of trouble. There are sick, sick people coalescing and they're being emboldened by the President of the United States.
This isn't paranoia. This isn't being a snowflake. We're staring into the abyss here, and the abyss is staring back.
If you thought American political rhetoric couldn't possibly get any more dangerously divisive, reckless, or incendiary, along comes the National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch to prove you more wrong than you probably thought possible. Take it away, Dana!
The Week's Paul Waldman explores some of the reasons why the NRA seems to have switched up their tactics. With Trump in the White House, they obviously couldn't continue terrifying their members with ominous warnings about gun-grabbing feds kicking in their doors, the way they did for eight years under President Obama... or, as he's referred to in the above video, "THEIR" President.
Instead, with the second amendment safe and sound under Trump, they appear to have decided to diversify their portfolio by choosing sides in the newly rekindled Culture Wars, thus effectively promoting firearm-based solutions to such "problems" as college students yelling at Milo Coulter, or late night comedians saying nasty things about "THE" President (as opposed to "THEIR" President).
Of course, in the grand tradition of right-wing mind blindness, some of our conservative brothers and sisters are saying that the only extremists here are those who see anything extreme in this ad! Here's Townhall's own pointy-headed Matt Vespa with a less than convincing explanation.
On Thursday, Ms Loesch appeared on FOX News' Tucker Carlson show to explain that she was talking about “fighting violence with truth, because truth wins out all the time." Which of course begs two questions: Who made the NRA the arbiters of truth? And why does the truth needs guns?
In closing, Huffpost video editor McJesse over at Twitter sez: "If you're gonna go after comedians maybe don't shoot in front of a blue background?"
Don't be surprised if you get a sinking feeling in your guts as you watch this short World War 2 era (good) propaganda film, titled Don't Be a Sucker. The comments section over at Youtube is enough to show you what the alt.right thinks of it, in any case. Some of those comments would make der Fuhrer blush with evil pride.
Of the many indicators that the Anglosphere's public intellectual ecosystem is in a sorry state of decline, perhaps the most compelling is the fact that telegenic mediocrity Sam Harris--he of the soothing, hypnotist's mien and the cold dead eyes of a serial killer--continues to be taken seriously, and that he maintains a significant readership, as well as a positively rabid online fan club.
Fortunately, the mysterious Reddit escapees who produce THErHizzonE have taken it upon themselves to provide the interested reader with a forensically thorough and meticulously argued case against paying any attention to anything Sam Harris has to say on any topic, whatsoever. And yet, as entertaining is it is to see such a self-satisfied, narcissistic fraud be so utterly dismantled, the author(s) have also done a great public service, producing a must read for anyone concerned about the deleterious effects that one well connected phony can have on the wider public discourse.
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Speaking of malevolent bad faith actors with sinister ulterior motives and an inexplicably large and vocal American fan base, how about them Russians?! The Daily Beast's excellent overview of America's long history of having sincere attempts at rapprochement backfire spectacularly, titled How Moscow's Spies Keep Duping America Over and Over Again, is both fascinating and chilling. It's enough to make you wonder which evil genius magician managed to convince so many ostensible Trump "foes" that there's nothing to the whole Russia thing, when the Russia thing is fucking HUGE, man, in all its ugly glory. Trump is covered in sucker marks from all the tentacles the Kremlin, Russian organized crime, the oligarchs (same dif) and all those weird Central Asian post-Soviet kleptocratic petrostates have wrapped around him. And yet we have self-styled lefties and Democrats screaming to stop talking about Russia. It's a testament to the New Fascist International's insanely powerful, next level propaganda skills, that's for goddamn sure.
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That's enough heavy thinking for one day. Let's close off today's offerings with a video: Wheeler Walker Jr.'s hit crossover (from Filthy Trucker Novelty Tape to New Country Fringe) "hit" single, "Pussy King"!
Twitter superstar Eric Garland is no stranger to sparking strong feelings with his penchant for rollicking, go-for-broke, hypercharged brainstorming sessions on Twitter. He was praised and scorned in equal measure for his now legendary (and quite excellent, in my view) Tweet Storm that kicked off with the infamous line: "It's time for some Game Theory!" Today's Storm is sure to spark more tone policing and concern trolling and furrowed brow pleas of "Come now dear boy" from the usual suspects. However, to anyone with even a passing familiarity with some of the lesser known movers, shakers, and goings-on of the past... oh, let's say 75 years, none of this will be all that surprising. It's just nice to see it laid out in such plainspoken language. - Jerky
<CONSPIRACY THREAD>
This was a takeover by the global billionaire nutball class. It'll be exposed soon. And no, not the stupid ((())) SOROS!!! thing. For real.
A little background: I have a mentor, one of the world's most brilliant historian/philosophers. He's not well known. By his design.
He can quote Epictetus or Plato or Laozi as easy as SNL - all of them with their humor in tact. He sees 2000 years as "recent-ish."
I learned to talk about movements in the 50-250 year timeframe. A little more than a fad, a bit less than an era. A "moment in time."
At this macroscopic level, you begin to speak about flows of power, the effect of ideas taken all the way out to their conclusions.
This leads one to talk about conspiracies - the discussion of a few people manipulating big power under cover of others' ignorance.
If you think about Europe and the Church before printing, this doesn't seem so crazy - only so many people could read. It's like that.
Anyhow, one day 15 years ago, I asked, "Like, WHOA, is there, like a Cabal of Global Power Elite Conspirators who run everything?"
"No," he laughed, "the hilarious part is that there are maybe 15-30 of those things- and they all think they're in control by themselves."
"They have A Lot of Money by any standard, and can get a ton done - but it's the combination of everyone that makes the world move."
All these people with gold toilets who think they can change math and chemistry - but really they're not in control either. Funny.
BUT, around 10-15 years ago, I started hearing about this weird strain of rich weirdos. The tech thing was getting big - and a bit psycho.
Apparently, there were some of the Very Wealthy Class who were starting to talk about controlling ALL OF HUMANITY through tech and stuff.
A CUSTOM HUMANITY! BY DESIGN! AND THE GENIUS IQ TECH RICH PEOPLE would anyway, it sounded nuts. But it sorta metastasized. Kept going.
I kept hearing bits of it. The "Sealand" people, where Java/C# programmers can live on an oil rig, because...genius? Like, wha?
Never mind mass farming and global supply chains. RICH GENIUS GALT WE SECEDE FROM MEDIOCRITY! IT'LL BE GREAT that kinda nuts.
A while back, I started hearing about a strain of this that turned out to be Mercer. SEE WE HAVE ALGORITHMSES! WE CAN HACK HISTORY!
Nano-IT-bio-info-technocracy! We ran Pets.com once! We are humanity's overlords! Also, we ruined mortgages! We are Gawds!
Anyhow, the play here in 2016 was the big move for Seekrit Tech Type Boss Autocracy Billionairez to Take Over The Game. I guess.
But it goes back to my teacher's lesson: Who's running The Conspiracy? A couple dozen groups. All with competing interests. Get it?
If you think you're in on The Conspiracy, then you missed the whole thing about A Bunch of Conspiracies, Most Actually Hidden. Funny, right?
So, in this weird adventure, the Mercers, deVos, the Nazis, Breitbart, Russia, five Saudis oh whoever, it's a big weird chart.
These guys thought they'd hack America, give it to Nazi Christians, have Mike Flynn defend it, and have hedge funders make all the monees.
So we have Sessions trying to institute 1877, Carson saying there's no poverty, and Mnuchin selling you mailbox to a Saudi bond fund.
THEY ARE IDIOTS. Because they ain't the only Conspiracy in town. Jay-Z and the Chinese Communists ran the whole thing.
Taking over the world is hard work. You're dumb to try it. Perhaps cherish the world instead. </CONSPIRACY THREAD>
Journalist Seth Abramson used his Twitter account to unleash an epic Tweet storm laying out his argument that Trump is already circling the drain, and that Mueller and Co are basically just tying up the loose ends, dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I've collected that information here, for ease of use and reference. Enjoy! - JERKY
(THREAD) We DO have PROOF Trump and Russia colluded. This thread PROVIDES it. Please read and RETWEET so we can end the no-collusion canard.
(1) In counter-intelligence, the term "coordination" is used to describe what laypeople now discuss as "collusion," so I use that term here.
(2) The Washington Post reports the FBI is investigating whether "coordination" was achieved between Trump and Russia via financial crimes.
(3) The assumption of this Washington Post report is that if Trump received Russian money during the campaign, he "coordinated" with Russia.
(4) This link to the WP confirms financial coordination would be "collusion." That is NOT what this thread is about.
(5) I link to the WP to *establish* that transfers of money between Trump and Russia during the campaign would be considered "coordination."
(6) The reason Trump-Russia money transfers in the campaign constitute "coordination" ("collusion") is because *Russia was at war with us*.
(7) Homeland Security experts agree that cyberwar is a modern form of war, and in 2016 Russia *unilaterally waged war* on the United States.
(8) The case for Trump-Russia coordination is *very easy* to make—it begins with *when* Trump learned Russia was waging cyberwar on America.
(9) We know that, at the *latest*, Trump himself learned that Russia was *at war* with the United States during the last week of July 2016.
Okay, so I'm going to start just blogging some of the best articles I come across without too much content, to get back into the daily swing of things. That incredible image up there comes from this Vanity Fair article entitled "Trump's Biggest Mistake Might Have Been Getting Elected". It's worth a look.
Speaking of figuring out how the Far Right propaganda machine works, Project S.H.A.M.E. has conducted a magnificently thorough and damning case study in how the Koch brothers, long time masters of conservative Astroturf techniques, create covert Manchurian Candidates from scratch, then send them out like info-terrorist sleeper cells to do their foul bidding whenever and wherever they deem it necessary. Only read this one if you're fully stocked up on your blood pressure meds.
