The Debate Part One
As you may have noticed, the Donald and Hillary show had a major performance monday night. With the help of a transcript, this slack blogger is going to express himself. The first part is going to be about the wit, and wisdom, of Donald J. Trump. Does he think he is impressing anybody? Maybe his base, and a few peeps put off by Hillary’s yucky personality, think picking a fight with the queen of nice is a good idea. And just how many people, living in states where your vote matters, are still undecided? Living in so-red-it-glows Georgia, it can be tough to know the difference. Anyway, here are a few examples of the orange goo soaking through his scalp, to further fry his mind.
CLINTON: “In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said, back in 2006, “Gee, I hope it does collapse, because then I can go in and buy some and make some money.” Well, it did collapse.’TRUMP: “That’s called business, by the way.” CLINTON: “Nine million people — nine million people lost their jobs. Five million people lost their homes. And $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out.”
CLINTON: “… Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it’s real.” TRUMP: “I did not. I did not. I do not say that.” CLINTON: “I think science is real.” TRUMP: “I do not say that.”
TRUMP: “And look at her website. You know what? It’s no difference than this. She’s telling us how to fight ISIS. Just go to her website. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website. I don’t think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much.”
CLINTON:” … Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.” TRUMP: “That makes me smart.”
CLINTON: “We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It’s a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn’t pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do…” TRUMP: “Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work…”
CLINTON: “You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said…”
TRUMP: “You know, Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials. Some of it’s said in entertainment. Some of it’s said — somebody who’s been very vicious to me, Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her”.
One of the themes of the DJT crusade has been immigration. You are all familiar with the routine… *we are going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it*. He touched on the subject Monday night. TRUMP: “So we’re losing our good jobs, so many of them. When you look at what’s happening in Mexico, a friend of mine who builds plants said it’s the eighth wonder of the world. They’re building some of the biggest plants anywhere in the world, some of the most sophisticated, some of the best plants. With the United States, as he said, not so much.”
The reason for the Mexican diaspora is economics. People living there cannot make a decent living, and so they come north to work. One way to slow down immigration is to provide jobs south of the border. So this starts to happen, and DJT complains. The dude is never happy.
At least when the money was made in America, some of it was spent here. Now, the money is made in Mexico, and the workers, and their money, will stay there. Maybe some profits will flow back into the United States. With the global economy, it is tough to say where the money is goes.
All DJT does about the loss of jobs to Mexico is complain. This is probably better than the Bernie Sanders approach. In the Brooklyn debate, BS has a curious solution to the problem. Bear in mind… one of the main reasons plants are built in foriegn countries is the lower wages paid to workers. Much, much lower wages. And what is the BS approach?
BLITZER: “So how do you bring back these jobs to the United States without affecting the cost of goods to America’s middle class and poor?” SANDERS: “Well, for a start, we’re going to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Dick Nixon TV Critic
The text below is a conversation between Mr. Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman. The tape was made May 13, 1971. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
NIXON: … CBS … glorifying homosexuality.
EHRLICHMAN: A panel show?
H. R. HALDEMAN: No, it’s a regular show. It’s on every week. It’s usually just done in the guy’s home. It’s usually just that guy, who’s a hard hat.
NIXON: That’s right; he’s a hard hat.
EHRLICHMAN: He always looks like a slob.
NIXON: Looks like Jackie Gleason.
HALDEMAN: He has this hippie son-in-law, and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law–make the square hard hat out to be bad. But a few weeks ago, they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, “You will not write that letter from my home!” Then said, “I’m going to write President Nixon,” took off all those sloppy clothes, shaved, and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode.
EHRLICHMAN: What’s it called?
NIXON: “Archie’s Guys.” Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He’s obviously queer–wears an ascot–but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar. I don’t mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don’t think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.
EHRLICHMAN: But he never had the influence television had.
NIXON: You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin’ the nuns; that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France. Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, and Mitchell will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality.
NIXON: Huh?
EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality. And with its use on television, it has such leverage.
NIXON: You know what’s happened [in northern California]?
EHRLICHMAN: San Francisco has just gone clear over.
NIXON: But it’s not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time–it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can’t shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. … Decorators. They got to do something. But we don’t have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they’re trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.
EHRLICHMAN: Hot pants.
NIXON: Jesus Christ.
Radio Free Europe
While researching a post about Molly Ivins, PG stumbled onto a lovely site called Booknotes. This site enables authors promoting their latest books. It seems to have gone out of business in December 2004, but the interviews are still available. PG likes to listen to “stuff” while he edits pictures, and Booknotes appears to be a treasure chest.
The multi tasking soundtrack last night was a chat with Hendrik Hertzberg, who is familiar to readers of The New Yorker. BTW, the majority of TNY readers live west of the Hudson River. Supposedly, the biggest number of readers is in California.
In 1965, Mr. Hertzberg was about to get drafted. At the time, this meant a one way ticket to Vietnam. Young men looked for alternatives to this, some of which were legal and moral. Mr. Hertzberg heard about an organization called the National Student Association. “And so I went to work after college for the National Student Association for a year. And it wasn`t just because the National Student Association was a wonderful cause that advanced liberal ideas and fought communism abroad and all of that sort of thing. Later, we learned that it was a CIA front, but I didn`t know that. What I did know was that if you worked for the National Student Association, you didn`t get drafted, that — it wasn`t exactly that you were deferred, but anyway, nobody got drafted while working for the National Student Association, so it was a way to have a year without worrying about getting drafted.”
The National Student Association has a facebook page, which one person likes. “The 1967 revelation of NSA’s ties to the Central Intelligence Agency sparked a national scandal, but did not measurably damage NSA.”
The CIA was involved in all sorts of things in those days. ( It still is today.) One of the fronts was Radio Free Europe. When PG was a kid, the cartoon shows had a commercial for Radio Free Europe. (It was different from the one embedded here.) These fund raising commercials were part of the scam. These commercials netted around $50k a year, towards a multi-million dollar budget. (source)
Soon after the war stories, the conversation turns to religion/tribal allegiance. LAMB: Explain this. “The Nuremberg laws would say I`m Jewish. The Law of Return would say I`m not.” HERTZBERG: Well, according to the Nuremberg laws, if you have a — if you had a Jewish father, the Nazi classification, you were a Jew. But the Law of Return, where — what entitles you to citizenship, automatic citizenship in Israel, you`ve got to have to have a Jewish mother. So I`m Jewish one way, I`m not Jewish the other way. I guess I feel sort of 51 percent Jewish because my name, Hertzberg, sounds Jewish, and therefore, people respond to me, often assume that I`m … 100 percent Jewish.”
This conversation was in 2004, when BHO was a little known Senator. Today, BHO, who had a white mother, is routinely considered black. If you go by the laws of the Nazis, BHO is black. If you go by the laws of Israel, BHO is white.
Mr. Hertzberg took a break from journalism to write speeches for President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Hertzberg is a member of the Judson Wellover Society. HERTZBERG: Judson Wellover was the very first White House speech writer. Not the first person to write speeches, ghost write speeches for a president — that would probably be Alexander Hamilton for George Washington — but the first person who was ever hired just to write speeches in the White House was Judson Wellover. He was hired by Warren G. Harding, and he — it was such a matter — it was such a shameful thing to have somebody writing — hired to write speeches that they hid his salary in the budget of the White House garage. And when we started, when Bill Safire and I started the Judson — the society of sort of a marching and chatter society or dinner — we have a dinner every couple of years of White House speech writers from all administrations, we named it after Judson Wellover.
Warren Harding is credited/blamed for coining the phrase “founding fathers”. Was Mr. Wellover involved? This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress.
Hillary Clinton Not An …
There was a video conversation posted Feb 4, 2016. The participants were Robert Wright, and Heather Hurlburt. The topic of conversation was spirituality, and life in Washington DC.
At the 27:14 mark, the conversation turned to people who work in government. Mr. Wright quoted a longtime Washington observer. He had never met a national elected official who was not an asshole. Ms. Hurlburt then named three politicians, with the phrase “not an asshole” after his name.
After a pause, Ms. Hurlburt said “Hillary Clinton. not an asshole …. I worked for her, and she is, in person, to individual people, a deeply good human being.” PG thought this was the best endorsement of Mrs. Clinton yet. He made a clip of the comment, and posted it in various venues.
After posting the quote, PG decided to go back and hear a bit of the context. The first three men to be labelled non-assholes were Chris Murphy, Mo Udall, and Tim Kaine. This was in February, five months before Senator Kaine was nominated to be Vice President.
In October 1992, there was a campaign rally in Woodruff Park. Al Gore, Tipper Gore, and Hillary Clinton were all there. Tipper Gore said that, in person, Hillary Clinton was just as warm and friendly (not an exact quote) in private, as she was in public. PG started to go back to the office, when he saw the President of the firm. “I guess we are both playing hookey.”
Pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Two Stories From 2009
This is a double repost from 2009. In the last seven years, Iraq has continued to be a hellhole, with the conflict spreading to Syria. The drug court client finished his program, and is having a good life. President Obama was reelected, and will retire in a few months. The people under the monuments, in the pictures, have not changed.
Thursday, President BHO had a white man and a black man over to take drugs. They had a rather public disagreement, and BHO stupidly poured gasoline on the fire. Drugs were the answer.
There are those who will immediately scream that beer is legal. Yes, alcohol is legal, advertised on television, and served in the White House. It is also an addictive drug. If you take too much, it will kill you. It is easier to die using hard liquor, but the concept is the same.
There are a lot of people in the legal machinery because of drugs. Some of these drugs are legal, some are not. Your liver is not amused to hear that the alcohol it is processing is legal. Your lungs don’t care if cigarettes are legal. The worst thing about some drugs is the fact that there is a law against them.
In Dekalb County, there is something called drug court. If you are on this program, you go to endless meetings, and get screened for drugs. Every time a person is screened for drugs, a lab charges the county money to process the test. This money could be used to give school teachers a raise, or to repair the roads. Instead, it goes to testing the urine of people who got caught smoking pot.
Thursday, drug court was meeting at the same time as the White House drug party. PG attended as part of “Friends and Family” night. The alcohol industrial complex was not affected.
One thing that PG likes to do is investigate “things he has always heard”. With google, you can often find the source, and a few things more. Some urban legends are tough to trace, often because they don’t exist. Others pop up 575k results is .49 seconds.
The myth PG was chasing was the notion that government officials said our army “will be greeted as liberators” in Iraq. On March 16, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press.
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately,… The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
There are a few things to say 78 months later. Why did the Vice President have this much power? The VP is supposed to dedicate buildings and go to funerals. Dick Cheney was clearly a very powerful man, and he was not elected to that job.
Mr. Russert, rest his soul, seems to have gotten one detail wrong. The conquest of Baghdad went smoothly, with relatively few American casualties. It was the occupation that would be “long, costly, and bloody …with significant American casualties”. One of the casualties has been the American economy. Thirteen years later, economic recovery is not complete.
There probably were many Iraqis who welcomed the change, Clearly, Mr. Hussein had some enemies, and there were some who did see the invasion as liberation. There were others who did not. Players in other countries saw an opportunity to come to Iraq and make trouble. The regime that was changed had many employees, who were bumped out of jobs. “The people of Iraq” were no more a monolithic force, all acting the same way, as the people of America would be if they were invaded.
Even if the Americans were “greeted as liberators”, there would be many challenges. The country had no experience in dealing with democracy. The different ethnic groups did not like each other. Sunnis were seen as having been privileged, and many were looking to settle the score. It seems obvious that these problems were not anticipated.
There is a debate in The United States about the use of torture. It seems apparent that “enhanced interrogation” was used extensively in Iraq and elsewhere. The use of torture would seem to be an admission that we were not greeted as liberators.
The Funeral Of Elvis
PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy.) This is a repost. Pictures are from the Farm Security Administration collection of The Library of Congress.
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this film. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story or two.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS under indictment. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.
Mr. LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
Mr. LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
Mr. LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
Mr. LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
Mr. LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
Mr. LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
Mr. LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
Mr. LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.
Don’t Tread On Me
Sometimes these stories write themselves. This one began with a tweet. @NotShaunKing “SJWs are now more offended by the Gadsen and Confederate flag, than the ISIS flag. Nice job, people!” The “Gadsen Flag” is the Revolutionary War banner. A coiled rattlesnake rests above the phrase “Don’t Tread on me.” It is a staple of American history.
Supposedly, someone is making a federal case out of wearing DTOM in the workplace. The google search shows stories by Fox News, and The Blaze. The slightly more reputable Washington Post has an article, Wearing ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ insignia could be punishable racial harassment.
“Here’s an excerpt from Shelton D. [pseudonym] v. Brennan, 2016 WL 3361228, decided by the EEOC two months ago: On January 8, 2014, Complainant filed a formal complaint in which he alleged that the Agency subjected him to discrimination on the basis of race (African American) and in reprisal for prior EEO activity when, starting in the fall of 2013, a coworker (C1) repeatedly wore a cap to work with an insignia of the Gadsden Flag, which depicts a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me.” Complainant stated that he found the cap to be racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a “slave trader & owner of slaves.”
PG read that, and began to think. This is never a good omen. If Christopher Gadsen was a slave owner, then what about Betsy Ross?
Elizabeth Griscom Ross is, according to legend, the seamstress who created the stars and stripes. The story is disputed. For this sake of this blog post, lets assume that the legend is real. Betsy Ross created the American Flag, albeit with thirteen stars. Did she own slaves?
One internet forum raises the question, Did Betsy Ross have a slave? “no, Betsy ross did not have a slave. RE: Her husband had slaves though ” Could women own property in 18th century America? Who knows? Bear in mind, this is an undocumented internet forum. As is the next story.
“Have you ever heard Betsy Ross had children by her African slaves and was shunned by the Quakers because of it? Betsy Ross was widowed three times, and I have heard that since she knew how white men were having children by African women to increase their slave population, she decided to do the same. … Betsy Ross had children by her male slaves to increase her slave popuplation (and in essence, her property value).”
FWIW, Betsy, (January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836,) was indeed married three times. The lucky men were John Ross (m. 1773–1776,) Joseph Ashburn (m. 1777–1782,) and John Claypoole (m. 1783–1817.) In both cases, she was remarried the next year. If she did take a slave baby daddy, she was very efficient. Maybe the husbands were understanding.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The Atlanta Crackers played ball until 1965.
Trump or Jesus?
There is a facebook thingie this morning, Trump or Jesus? When creating the document for this feature, windows decided not to *save* the document with the T 0r J title. That is an omen.
The idea is simple. You get a quote, in contemporary english. You choose whether it was said by Jesus, or Trump. Jesus is in a blue box, while Trump is red. White letters are used for both choices. Those who think Christ is the last name will be confused.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5.
“My IQ is one of the highest… Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure; it’s not your fault.” source
“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” source
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34.
“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:39
“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay?” source
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Matthew 19:20
“The point is that you can’t be too greedy.” source
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” John 13:34
“The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.” source
This is not a tough test. It is even easier here, with Bible verses for one, and links for another. Jesus did not tweet. The media, IQ, and Terrorist are modern phrases. (There is evidence that the phrase terrorist was coined by the Jewish rebels fighting to create the state of Israel. Ben Hecht wrote a fund raising ad, Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine. It “appeared on page 42 of the May 14, 1947 edition of the New York Post.”)
We do not know what translation was used in this test. Jesus spoke Aramaic, which was recorded in Greek, and endlessly translated. There are stories of editing by the Catholic church. Many scholars question the validity of some Gospels, especially John. While Jesus may have said something like these verses, they are not verbatim quotes.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Conservative Liberal Racist
The management of this blog is not responsible for brain damage incurred while reading this post. If you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Those threatened by this discussion, or not interested, are encouraged to skip over the text, and look at the pictures. These images, of Union Soldiers of the War Between the States, are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
There is a meme, with the text a conservative is a liberal who has been labeled a racist. A few comments followed publication. Someone was paying attention. Uhm…WTF?! ~ its a long story ~ All three labels are useless and misleading. I try not to let the labels of others describe me, but sometimes it happens. It is a bit of poetic license.
The words liberal and conservative are useless. When he started to make the comment, PG intended to refer to those two expressions. Then he started to type.The realization hit … the word racist was just as obsolete as liberal and conservative, and probably misused more often.
The next day at work, PG began to think. If you saw a mushroom cloud rising over Jimmy Carter Boulevard, that is what you saw. Random thoughts began to emerge.
A- The popularity of con, lib, and rac, derive from America’s blind allegiance to the belief paradigm The general thought is that what you believe is more important than what you do. The dominant religion in America is Jesus Worship, which is based on beliefs rather than practices. While America is not officially a Christian country, their thought processes dominate the way things work here.
B- The belief paradigm filters down to the popularity of silly labels.We have people who claim to be small government conservatives, and who support sending 200k troops to a war eight time zone away. You can treat your black neighbors with kindness and grace, but if you say the wrong things on facebook you are considered a racist. It is a funny system.
C- Conservatives use liberal as an insult. Liberals use racist as an insult.
D- No one is certain what the words conservative, liberal, and racist mean. You should beware of anyone who claims to be certain of what these labels represent.
Wawa Wars
There is a rumor that Fox News turkey Sean Hannity was booed out of a Wawa sandwich shop in downtown Philadelphia last night. The story is almost certainly not true. This does not stop people from believing. @AngryBlackLady “that’s the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. LMAO. My Philly peeps don’t fuck around.”
ABL posted an 18 part tweetathon about the incident. The source was @EmoNegro1. “Join me as I tell the stories very important people don’t want you to know about! #SATIRE” The last word of that profile is important. Here is the story.
@EmoNegro1 “01-My sources told me what REALLY happened to make Sean Hannity get booed out of the Wawa! ~ 02-Well, my source says Sean Hannity came up in the Wawa, cut everybody in the line & demanded they make him a cheesesteak hoagie. NOW. ~ 03-So Sean Hannity cuts everybody in liine & starts demanding they fix him a cheesesteak hoagie RIGHT NOW & people weren’t happy! ~ 04-So this black guy (who I think was a DNC attendee) said “Ay, the line starts back there.” ~ 05-Hannity told him he was in a hurry, he had a very important job to get back to & to let Tanikqua fix his sandwich so he can get back to work ~ 06-The Wawa worker’s name was Ashley. Ashley told Hannity, sir my name is ASHLEY and he had to order his hoagie from the computer station & his number would be called when ready. ~ 07-The black guy in line said “What you not gone do is disrespect people up in here & what you not gone do is cut people in this line.” ~ 08-So Hannity said “You sound like a Black Lives Matter guy, are you a Black Lives Matter guy? Are you from Ferguson? Are you from Baltimore?” ~ 09-That’s when everybody head turned around. One lady said “Hey what does Black Lives Matter have to do with you cutting in the line?” ~ 10-Hannity said “This is the culture of lawlessness the Obamas & Black Lives Matter have taught you people.” ~ 11-That’s when it was on. One lady said “You people?” while somebody else said “Put some respeck on Barack name” ~ 12-And Hannity was hollering for the manager, but sadly for him the manager on duty was black and told Hannity to leave. ~ 13-No white people in the Wawa came to Hannity’s defense, either. They all just looked away. They weren’t trying to have their ass beat! ~ 14-The people started booing Hannity & telling him to get the fuck outta there. ~ 15-Hannity told them “Do you know who I am? I’m Sean Hannity!” Well that didn’t help matters any! ~ 16-The manager told Hannity he needed to leave before he called the police & Hannity said Oh NOW you people want to call the police! ~ 17-My source says the manager gave Hannity a look like “You Tried It!” and hustled him out of the door! ~ 18-And that’s the story of how Sean Hannity got ran up out of the Wawa in downtown Philly!”
Many people are not familiar with @Wawa Is Barbwa Wawa an investor? When PG asked Mr. Google about Wawa, he was directed to Wawa Asian Spa. “Don’t walk, run from the Wawa Spa. $60 for massage plus almost double extra for tips. 2 minute massage then wants to get to business and rush you out of there. Masseuse was 35+. Definitely not worth the money.”
Sean Hannity worked in Atlanta before he hit the big time. One day, the “great american” rode in a parade downtown. PG followed him around for a few blocks, with a blank stare. Finally, the announcer said “are we having fun yet?” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. “Return of W. E. “Pusseyfoot” Johnson to Westerville, Ohio, from London, England, April 24, 1920″
Gayest Neo-Fascist Rally
I’m With The Banned hit the innertubes recently. It is the story of how “a radical queer feminist leftist writer *burdened* with actual principles” attended the “Gays for Trump” party at the Republican National Convention. It is 2876 words of overwrought prose. In an effort to get this material to the public, here is a condensed version.
This is a story about how trolls took the wheel of the clown car … swank black trollmobile to the gayest neo-fascist rally at the RNC. … Milo Yiannopoulos is a charming devil and one of the worst people I know. … the clown car of the billionaire demagogue who, with ghoulishly oedipal glee, Milo calls ‘Daddy.’ … Milo slides into the front seat, all bleach and bling and giant sunglasses—I won’t get to see his eyes all evening. … According to the law of the wild web, the spoils go to those with fewest fucks to give (An ironic comment when used to describe Milo Y. Maybe the old saying is true… those who talk the most, do the least.) … A choreographed performance by a career sociopath who will claim any cause to further his legend. Milo Yiannopoulos is the ideological analogue of Kim Kardashian’s rear end. … the delighted Twitter martyr’s Reservoir Dogs strut through to the VIP room—a carpeted ballroom on the seventh floor of hell full of manic trolls and smug neo-fascists from every slimy corner of the internet. … Over by the bar, Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader, is having a nice chat with two republicans of the sort who look like they’ve been poured into their suits. I realise that I have stumbled into a den of goblins. … most obviously disturbed member of the neo-right suicide squad in attendance. … And there is Daryush Valizadeh, also known as Roosh V, self-styled leader in the “neo-masculinity” movement, author of a suspicious stack of sex travel guides and headline-hunting nano-celebrity in the world of ritualised internet misogyny. … he’s negging me. … crucible of A-list internet con-men is playing. It’s the game of turning raw rage into political currency, the unscrupulous whorebaggery of the troll gone pro. (At some point, Hunter S. Thompson observed that “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” This has devolved into “the unscrupulous whorebaggery of the troll gone pro.) … These people do not have personalities, they have haircuts. Ugly ones. … The news draws cheers from the assembled Gamergate goons whose masculinity is so fragile that they believe the new Ghostbusters film to be an active identity threat. (This might be a reference to the recent spat between Milo Y. and Leslie Jones. This was the presumed reason for twitter banning Milo Y. The promotion of that movie has morphed into an SJW cause.) … They ventriloquise the fear of millions into a scream of fire in the crowded theatre of modernity where all the doors are locked, and then they watch the stampede, and they smile for the cameras. … This is an evil place, airless and soulless as the inside of Pamela Geller’s head. … … weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance. … culture war is being run in bad faith by bad actors who are running way off-script, and it’s barely begun, and there are going to be a lot of refugees.
One of the comments said “G-d, I hope everyone in America reads this.” Pictures today are from the Library of Congress. “Anti-Saloon League at Washington, D.C., Dec. 8, 1921”
How Donald Trump Could Win
“Michael Moore is afraid and is convinced that Trump will win. Prove him wrong!” The comment supplied a link, Michael Moore Gives 5 Scary Reasons Why Trump Will Win. Against his better judgment, PG made a comment. There was a reply.
I can offer four more. A Health crisis for Hillary Clinton. Alienating white voters by screaming racist too often. Choosing an idiot as Vice President. An economic meltdown. ~ Number 2 on your list explains everything that is wrong with the US – a singular refusal by white people to admit they’re racists, especially the really racist ones. ~ You just gave me an idea for a blog post.
This post will focus on scary reasons one, three, four, and offer number five. Number two is a bunch of number two. The national obsession with OPRAH (other people’s racial attitudes hello) produces more heat than light. It is summertime. More heat is not needed.
HRC is 68 years old. She has been married, to a notoriously unfaithful man, for 41 years. If you google “Hillary Health,” you get replies from the likes of Brietbart and RedState.
There is at least one plausible story, Secretary of state faints, sustains concussion. Dec. 15, 2012 WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who skipped an overseas trip this past week because of a stomach virus, sustained a concussion after fainting, the State Department said Saturday. … The State Department said Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus, fainted and sustained a concussion. She will continue to work from home in the week ahead and looks forward to returning to the office “soon,” the statement said.
In the next few days, HRC will announce the VPOTUS candidate. This is an important decision. The past few elections have run the gamut, from safe politicians (Al Gore, Joe Biden) to blithering idiots (Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin.) (A google spell check on Quyale produced the search suggestion “dan quayle once said “i am not a potted plant.”) A third category might be secret boss in waiting, or Dick Cheney. So far, HRC has run a smart campaign. It will probably continue, at least for VPOTUS.
In September 2008, the economy went to hell. We are still recovering. When the stock market lost 800 points in one day, the election of BHO was all but assured. Hopefully, and probably, this will not happen this year. However, in an election as goofy as this one, anything is possible.
Reason five is war, terrorism, natural disaster, oil spillage, or anything else that kills a lot of people. There is no telling what the Illuminati has planned for this fall. Whatever it is, we might not know the truth until after November 8, when it is too late. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
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