Saturday, January 30, 2016

Trump is a bore

Nothing kills someone faster on the American stage than being a bore. Not accusations of sexual assault.
Predictability is a close second.
Sometimes performers can work around being ugly, but if a bore is ugly he is on double secret probation.
Donald Trump’s lines are guaranteed to make him boring.
Insults figure in also. With only a day to go Trump told Iowans they were stupid if they wasted his time by not declaring him the winner.
Just as journalists have tools to drift from objectivity, such as saying “it raises questions…” Who is raising them?
With Trump he doesn’t say a bitch is ugly and stupid. He says other people are saying it. Not him.
Americans, regardless of faith, are taught not spread gossip or lies.
Trump missed Thumper. “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say nothing.”
In Trump land it works like this. “Other people say she is a bitch. I like her, Oh, and she was born near the USA.”
Also predictable, which is being noticed across the nation, is that networks always find a way to declare #Trump the winner.
Even if the Republican main debate got several times more viewers, and CNN cut away from Trump’s #narcicissist love-affair with his mirror.
Still the media said Trump won. Won what?
Many believe Richard Nixon’s ugliness cost him the presidency.
Hillary Clinton is not a starlet. But she actually looks like an ordinary American.
Trump is closer to Frankenstein.
Gene Wilder could play the part.
There is on area where America is stronger than in the past. Comedy.
With content providers from Netflix to Amazon to Comedy Central where does a man with a bargain-version wig belong.
Back in the box. Even Barbie has spruced herself up.
A study the BBC reported on says people would rather get painful shocks than be bored.

It brings a Winston Churchill comment, completely out of context and not quoted exactly. A woman tells him he is drunk. He says I am. But when I wake up I will sober. You will still be ugly.
Trump, who had captured the American imagination, turns out to be nothing more than the Wizard of Oz. Americans had to discover this on their own; the networks were the voice of the wizard.
Soon Trump will fall off his wall, and all the workers in China won’t be able to put him back together again. It is not like building a wall.
Lego turned down the job.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Some reasons for Trump popularity



There are many reasons why Americans are unhappy with the state of their lives and their country.
Helped by the media, which adores him, Trump’s message is distorted so much that he is partly responsibile for our troubles, and the responsibility of others in the GOP, is turned on its head. People with Trump’s views made things the way they are.
Start with the Tea Party. It successfully got taxes reduced so much that desperate governments have to rip citizens off with fees for licenses, parking fines, and the like.
A justice system that allows cops to kill indiscriminately is not available to the public unless they can pay expensive lawyers. Even filing a motion costs $200.
The same government that does not help us interferes in our personal lives when we want an abortion, to marry someone of the same sex, or smoke weed.
The Republican-led government that sent us to war looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction cut taxes, making it certain veterans returning with PTSD like Sarah Palin’s son would not get the treatment they need in a timely fashion.
The icing on the cake is failures by a revenue-stripped government to prevent disasters such as the Flint water attempt to save money at the expense of a Democrat-controlled city. Republican presidential candidates want nothing to do with this.
Meanwhile, Trump continues with this brainwashing?
Nazi Joseph Goebbels said: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." 
Politico has found that Americans who like authoritarianism are the biggest supporters of Trump.
The reality TV star, who already is throwing critics out of his rallies, would be throwing them in jail when they rose to oppose him on the streets.This week he bragged he could shoot people in the street, like his Russian and North Korean buddies, and still win.
Soon the nation will see Trump has no clothes, despite having the money for a Cleopatra-like wardrobe. What happens then remains to be seen.





Monday, January 4, 2016

All Americans own Western lands


A new Sagebrush Rebellion, again involving armed men, shows that the federal government is going to have to act to enforce the law.
I learned as a reporter covering the West for Associated Press, and living in seven states from Alaska to Arizona, that some people believe that because they live closer to this land that they have more say in its management than those in other states.
In fact, someone living in Portland, Maine, has as much right to the management of this land as people like me who live in Colorado.
Much blood was spilled taking the Western states, and the rest of the nation, and no one has any personal right to any public land. In many territories they agreed to give some of their land to the nation in order to become states.
Washington required a share of the land to cover the cost of deploying the U.S. Army to unsettled areas to protect them from the Native Americans who lived there. Critics would say steal the land.
The federal government pays millions to nearly 2000 local governments to replace taxes they would receive they were private land.
In return, if private land owners want to use federal land to graze cattle, or do anything else to make money, they must pay fees.
The right-wingers, led by the Bundy family, want “the federal government to give up its unconstitutional presence in this county.”
In other words, those of us who live else in the nation, meaning the majority, would be granting the right of ownership to national land. All this without a vote.

Here is a description of the land seized:
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was established on August 18, 1908, by President Theodore Roosevelt as the Lake Malheur Reservation. Roosevelt set aside unclaimed government lands encompassed by Malheur, Mud and Harney Lakes “as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.” The newly established “Lake Malheur Reservation” was the 19th of 51 wildlife refuges created by Roosevelt during his tenure as president. At the time, Malheur was the third refuge in Oregon and one of only six refuges west of the Mississippi.
This political battle has a long history, and it has ended in violence on some occasions. In 2014 the leaders of the revolt escaped punishment.
This is a different country in 2016. The sight of rogues of whatever political view marching around with automatic rifles will not be well received on network news or YouTube.
It reminds us of a period in our history when rustlers stole cattle and anything else they want. They also drove farmers on land they wanted to graze cattle on. Perhaps the nation needs President Obama to become a real-life Shane.