OCTOBER AMBUSH

By (O)CT(O)PUS

The October surprise we have been expecting was more ambush than surprise. The Trojan Horse turned out to be FBI Director James Comey.  The surprise did not start in October.

It began long ago in the halls of Congress when partisanship preempted citizenship followed by years of legislative deadlock and gridlock, showdowns and shutdowns.

Politics has always been a rough and tumble business; but this election cycle is unlike any in history. Bombast, falsehoods and reckless rhetoric have pushed all standards of honesty and decency further into a savage wilderness … far from traditional norms of civilized conduct.

According to sources close to the FBI investigation, Hillary’s computer server is no longer the subject of the latest probe, nor her emails. Attention has turned to a flaccid laptop owned by Anthony Weiner of pickled pecker fame shame.

Devoid of detail, Director Comey’s notice to Congress is more Rorschach schlock than letter.  It arouses the dark id of innuendo and insinuation, unleashing fiendish wraiths from the pits of Mordor.

“Crooked Hillary … the biggest scandal ever … worse than Watergate … lock her up,” bellows the smug Scumbag Billionaire, whose words stink of mob malevolence immune to evidence.

According to a complaint filed by Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in the Bush administration, Director Comey failed to secure a warrant before notifying Congress. Ignoring DoJ guidelines, he committed an abuse of power in violation of the Hatch Act. Thus, one lone saboteur cast a pall over an election unjustly days away.

How a bully, charlatan, misogynist and serial sex predator made it this far is inconceivable. More astonishing are his legions of loyal followers who filter only the news they want to hear — yet remain steadfastly tone-deaf to his reckless rhetoric. Decades ago, Hannah Arendt warned of ruthless demagogues who will usurp our democratic freedoms to undermine democracy itself.

More than 2,000 years ago, Plato foresaw the demise of democracies which inevitably devolve, decline, and sink into dictatorships. Circa 2016, the signs and symptoms are clear, but you cannot reason with an angry mob.

Scumbag Billionaire has unleashed a dark and ugly populism slouching towards fascism, and worse is yet to come.

America's Evil Twin

OK, it's official. They've been telling me I hate America since the mid 1960's and it's never been true, until now. I hate America but please realize that I hate only one of the two. I hate the America where people scream about Mrs. Clinton approving of ripping "babies" out of their mother's womb two days before birth. I hate the America where people howl about how "those damn liberal Democrats" have ruined everything, where Trumps "boy talk" is just boy talk. I hate that America for a thousand reasons and ten times more and if you belong there, I hate you too.

Sitting in the hospital waiting room this morning waiting for a blood test and it's always a chore, not because I'm afraid of needles but because it's largely an elderly crowd and in Florida elderly often means mean. There was no Fox news on the TV this time, but one woman in her 70s, speaking to an older male companion volunteered that it was "only boy talk."  A day or two ago, before I had given up I might have replied. "are you talking about the boys in the juvenile home or the psych ward?"  But I didn't. It wouldn't do any good.

"well there's nobody lower down on the moral scale than the Marines and they all talk like that" says he. "but God bless the US Marines."  Sure, as long as they don't rape anyone or run for President, but what good does it do to argue people so far removed from decency, so devoid of intelligence and so damned stupid as to need me to explain it to them.

Someone on Facebook gets all kind of high fives for talking about "partial birth abortion" and Hillary Clinton. I didn't reply and for the reason, see above, but explaining to him that this was a term made up by Religio-Republican liars for Jesus, not doctors, would get nowhere with him or his crowd. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and blowhards gotta blow hard.

Approximately 0.2% of abortions are the D&X type: Dilate and Extract, where instead of "ripping" the cervix is dilated. It's done not as birth control, but in cases when the foetus is dead, or has no brain or is brain dead and delivering it normally would kill it and its mother. Liars for Jesus are not approachable and particularly not with facts.

Should I go on?  Why? It's hopeless. You can't fix stupid and fixing ignorant takes a willing patient.  I've yet to meet one. Call it the US of  idiocy, Call it Jesustan, call it what you like, it's here to stay while the other America withers away. It's too late. We could have done something, but once the brainless, the mentally unfit are born, it's too late because such people will take over and it will end badly.  I hate that America and its sad, sick history of genocide and persecution and superstition and bigotry. I hate the camo commandos with their fake military weapons and pea brains, the government haters, the civilization haters, the law haters who want to live alone in the jungle like orange haired Orangutans, dreaming about rape and Donald Trump. Do I think the other half could have done better?  Of course, but all the haters, baiters and masturbators with your Bibles and Trump signs can only lead us to war, famine pestilence and poverty.

Four Years and Four Horsemen

I'm cautiously optimistic about Mrs. Clinton's chances this November, but I'm absolutely confident that we will have four years of investigations and hearings designed, if not to produce an impeachment, to impede here ability to function as a president.  It's been the modus operendi since Bill's two terms and the Republican Party has been a straight jacket and little more ever since.

The usual suspects in the house are calling for a special prosecutor.  Crazy Cruz  has called for a "serious criminal investigation" based on yet another fabricated video alleging voter fraud and Speaker Paul Ryan, the Cowardly Lion wants "aggressive oversight work" in the House based on the utter and absolute and overwhelming scandal of reclassifying an email.  All tactics familiar to the GOP and exciting to those hopelessly infected with Hillaryhate and to those whose insight into American politics began yesterday.

Some have hoped a Trump debacle would force reality on the Republicans, prompt a shift toward the middle and a tentative return to concern for the consequences of their actions, but of course some have hoped for a lot of things and a lot of lost causes. It's probably better than a psychopathic, vengeful and power mad warmonger in the White House, but the price will be high and the war on government, the war against America and the war against progress will continue. ISIS or no ISIS, I can see the future and it's war. Famine, Death and Pestilence sold separately.

Abandon All Faith

I can hardly condemn people for getting much if not most of their news from the Internet. It's efficient, you can read many sources quickly and you don't have to sit through all those TV commercials or deal with all that newsprint. That's why you're here, right?  The problem is, obviously, that for every legitimate news report there are uncountable sources of propaganda, slanted news and totally fabricated lies. Unless you're just looking for laughs you tend to believe them because you want to. We all want our prejudices, or as we like to call them, our principles, to be confirmed. Indeed far too many of us log on first thing in the morning desperately seeking outrage, scandal and condemnation. It's like a strong cup of coffee to get us going, and as with all things, where there is a demand, there arises a supply. It's called the Internet.

There are web pages that closely mimic the major outlets and unless you look closely you may think you've logged in to CNN.com or a legitimate newspaper. There are all sorts of web sources attached as supporting links on the things you get on Facebook or in email demonstrating that whatever it is you don't like is a fraud, fake or a harbinger of doom. Many are just more propaganda, many don't even exist.

But there are all sorts, put up by all sorts of organizations or individuals or political parties. My opening delight this morning was labeled as World News Politics.com and in the wildest of hysterical terms proves that Hillary Clinton hates and wants to persecute Christians:

Hillary Clinton: CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA Must ABANDON FAITH IN CHRIST, Adhere To NEW LIBERAL LAWS

Screeches the headline. a misquoted menu of quotes mrom Mrs. Clinton proving this premise follows. Why this found its way to me, I don't know, being a cynical and fairly well informed atheist, but the claimed 277,000 "shares" means others welcomed the chance to feed the addiction, to feed the Hillaryhate, that newest branch of the Clintonhate religion that dates to Bill's first campaign. Of course none of those predictions or maledictions came true and Bill may have been the most successful president in our history, but faith never dies, nor do lies  and they're still predicting all sorts of horrors that never happened then and won't happen now. One of those things is the persecution of Christians.

The writers of News World Politics may or may not believe this idiocy, but they know you desperately need it as a vampire needs blood and the people who pay them make their living from your fear and hate and other psychological problems you like to call Christianity. What you may depend on for your identity and self respect along with your Confederate pretense, your sense of biological superiority and your guns.

It's not going to die, it's not going to go away and it will continue like a cancer in America no matter that it's fake and like the "tax and spend" meme, the Gun Grabber meme, the "spread the wealth" calumny, it's designed to make you abandon your faith in America. Can you imagine what kind of people with what kind of motivation are behind this? That's not too hard, is it?

Even if It's Not Indian Summer in Your Location This Should Bring You Cheer

Julian Assange is without his beloved internet access and there is no one that he can call. The government of Ecuador has decided to suspend his privileges. Ha ha! What a hoot. I stumbled across this using my own cable modem and later traced the original article to Monday's edition of Wonkette. Our poor and very dear little baby-faced boy must be so upset. Not much to do all shut up inside in London as he has found himself. The government of Ecuador remains committed to protecting him from political persecution. However, it would seem that they are, at least temporarily, seeking to prevent him from doing any further harm on the behalf of Putin and his puppet, Trump.

Say it My way.

The right to advocate for a cause, almost any cause, is guaranteed in the US.  The right to assume the place of sole advocate or sole owner of a cause is not.  To express your own feelings that might in fact share the same goals as that organization is a guaranteed right and no group has a copyright on goals. If I create Fogg's Fight Against Fraud, I do not thereby gain the right to preclude another fight against fraud from pursuing  that fight in their own words. I do not have a monopoly or protection as sole spokesman for truth or justice. I have no right to condemn the good intentions of someone who simply isn't part of my organization.   

A New York police sergeant responding to a call about an “emotionally disturbed person” fatally shot a 66-year-old woman wielding a baseball bat.  We can, of course  be sure this is explained by police racism, although the article gives no description of the woman.  So how can I be sure?  Because James O’Neill, the New York police commissioner said “Every life to me is precious.” and was answered by a call from the crowd of "black lives matter." O'Neill is a racist and that's that. Act inclusive and you're a racist or in other words not a member of BLM, Inc.

You can't call me a dog hater because I think all animals shouldn't be abused nor called a racist because I think no one should be subject to police abuse. Yet I am and Commissioner O'Neill is, and a chorus of Liberals tells me I have no right to stand up for freedom and  justice for all if it interferes with the program and agenda of self-appointed BLM. 

The implication of this attitude is that authority and morality and social obligation and equality under the law are based on race. The reason for the blindfold on all those statues of Justice is to refute that and to use that blindfold as a gag is simply shameful.

  

Donald Trump Overture

Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Trump, Trump, like some ghastly, grotesque operatic overture. Trump, Trump, Trump, the boys are marching; marching  like the boot heels of goose stepping Trump Troopers trampling respect, compassion, freedom, truth and the fabric of  decency - the remains of Democracy.

I no longer take my second cup of coffee and watch the news and weather in the morning. It's nothing but Trump today as it was Trump yesterday and the day before. Three days of conjecture about the upcoming debate. Three weeks until it's over, How long until he starts taking prisoners, rounding up undesirables, sending them somewhere.

Heil Trump, he'll make Deutschland America great again - soon - after we remove those elements rotting our greatness. It was a disaster, remember, a Disaster. Mexicans groping your wife, you daughter, your mother, remember?

Trumpgestapo  at your door:  your papers please!  Vote for Clinton?  Come with me. No one will care, no one will see.  You with the scarf, you with the beard: track 6, the red boxcar, all aboard.

You can hardly see through the fog of hate. You can hardly see anything but that snarling orange face, snorting like an angry bull. You can hardly see America from your window.

Cheatos for Breakfast

I begin each day with morning coffee, a newspaper, and a glance at the opinion pages. This morning, I found a letter to the editor exhorting us to “Vote Republican (even if you don’t like Trump).”

Written by Robert G. Bannon of Vero Beach, FL, I wondered: Is this Bannon related to Steve Bannon (who choked his wife, faced battery charges, and threatened to kidnap his own children)? The one who hates Jews and considers them to be “whiny brats?”  Steve Bannon of Breitbart, the fright mart of cringeworthy conspiracy news?  Steve Bannon who now serves as Donald Trump’s campaign manager?

My overactive imagination jumps to conclusions; never judge one Bannon by another. Nevertheless, I penned a reply:

Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him! Trump demeans women and brags about sexually assaulting them (while cheating on his wives). Elect him?

HRC oversaw the State Department when 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. Over 200 people died in embassy attacks under two former Republicans presidents. Huh? Colin Powell called the Benghazi hearings a partisan “witch hunt.” Anyone listening?

Immigrants don't pay taxes. Build a wall and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. This makes him a genius?

The Clinton Foundation spent 87% of their donations helping people. She’s a crook. In contrast, Trump bought himself artwork, paid lawyers, and paid off investigators to avoid prosecution … spending less than 5% of donations on actual charity work (forcing NY State to shut down his fraudulent foundation). Savvy?

HRC declares a $700k tax loss. Lock her up! Trump declares a billion dollar tax loss in one year … leaving behind a trail of bankruptcies, lawsuits, and small contractors who were never paid for their work. This makes America ggrr8?

Hillary apologizes for using private email servers. Lock her up! Trump lies about everything he actually said (with his own voice on tape). Hero?

Honest Republicans have disavowed him. Yet, Trump supporters filter only the news they want to hear. Their double standards are offensive. Their blind willingness to support a scoundrel with recycled rhetoric is absurd. Tone deaf denials are not facts. Hypocrisy is not a platform.

Donald Trump is a Fascist

"The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry."

-Donald Trump-

I hear these speeches, cheered on by sign-carrying and furious Trump Troopers and it all sounds familiar. Not just in content but in tone and although that tone has everything in common with the rants of dictators and revolutionary heroes longing to become dictators, the content suggests an ancestry shared with the NSDP or as we're used to calling them, the Nazis.

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion has been around a long time, has been thoroughly and resoundingly debunked by many different students of our human history of evil, but of course it survives, postulating a shadowy international cabal that controls the banks and financial institutions for malicious purposes: the Jewish enemies of freedom and prosperity.  Sound familiar?  My copy was published by a "Christian Nationalist organization in California and it's widely printed in the Arab countries and taught as true.  Sounds like Trump,

doesn't it, but it sounds like the deranged and obstinate beliefs of hard core Trumpists now that his candidacy has all but been destroyed by his speeches and actions. His use of that 1000 year old meme about Jew in the banking system and how it cheats noble countries like Germany and the USA out of their fortunes. Somehow, though, perhaps as an adjunct to the evil Jewish cabal, Hillary Clinton runs that show.

Then there was the American Fascist,  Father Coughlin, still revered in some Christian and anti-Semitic circles, with his radio rants stinking of the Protocols: the same sort of blame games found in Hitler's speeches. He had to be silenced by the Roosevelt Administration for his open support of Hitler. He lived until 1979 and although he was no longer on the air that I know of, one still finds web sites supporting him. Yes, he sounds like Trump too.

"Safe for dictatorship?" whines Coughlin "Or safe, safe for the international bankers?"

Listeners were left with no doubt that in this speech advising us to leave Hitler alone in sein Kampf against the world wide control of the Zionist elders, Back Hitler or you let in the Jews. He was talking about Jews: hooked-nosed, swarthy, hand-wringing, usurious, Christ Killing Jews, the ones who secretly control the world along with Hillary Clinton, the Illuminati and the Ancient Aliens.  

Jews were the illegal aliens of Europe, although they had been there for thousands of years. They were aliens and had to be deported as Ezra Pound said on the radio in 1942 while living in Fascist Italy: 

"You let in the Jew and the Jew rotted your empire." 

 He sounds like Trump too because they are both Fascists and the sound of Fascism, the sound of Trumpism, is the sound of hate. The enemy is hiding among us and we have to keep them behind walls.We have to put them in boxcars and send them to remote places for "special handling"

I realize that Trumpers don't give a damn about these things. Not the least little bit, but Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League are trying to be heard with not much success.  

But to remain quiet is to repeat the mistakes of those here and abroad who kept quiet in the 1930's until at least 20 million people died.  Donald, who openly brags that his intelligence comes from his Aryan genes. Donald whose staff have launched anti-Semitic tirades of name calling against Jewish critics, and his son, Donald Junior, has been criticized for making a gas chamber joke as a warning to critics.

Safe indeed. Is America safe for free people with Donald Trump and his beer-hall rabble and all their guns?

Nothing is True and All Things are Permitted

Half truths, whole truths, twisted truths and bullshit. Whether or not it takes all kinds, we get all kinds and although you'd think "fact checks" like I just saw on NBC would be there to check facts objectively, Don't Risk Offending is the operating principle. The news is not a public service, it's the entertainment business. Don't risk offending.  Checking Trumps assertion that the Obamas had launched the most vicious personal attacks against Hillary Clinton - ever, there was no way they could get around the falsehood and rated it untrue.   Did that make it necessary to call her assertion that we were now for the first time energy independent a lie?  Of course the "ever" part is, to be kind, hyperbole. We were energy independent back when oil wasn't very important and things ran by coal.

We certainly were not under the previous administrations lascivious love affair with the Saudis and Prince Bandar and the Bin Laden Bank were keeping W out of the financial troubles he had got himself into.  Remember when we were told Obama was anti-energy and his policies of forbidding exploration was going to destroy the US? Well the percentage of foreign oil used is now down to 28% from it's peak in 2005 of 68%. and on track for nearly zero in a few years. Remember all that "drill baby drill" rhetoric?  Well if you're looking for actual lies. . .

So we're nearly there and on track for 90% independence in short order, thank you, laws of supply and demand, Barack Obama's "policies" and screw you Sarah Palin and John McCain. That was all a lie. But to NBC, Hillary was lying -- just like Trump and so they're both proven liars.   That's where the bullshit part I mentioned above comes in. Do they check his indefensible and offensive facts and figures?  Not really. It's just one lie each and they're both equally guilty and any stretch, and innacuracy is the same as murder 1.

It's been that way a long time.  I remember back during the Bush Vs. Gore ordeal, one of the network nitwits looked at the camera and said "Gore lied -- he lied" in a whining tone.  The lie? he had quoted some figure as 4.6% instead of 4.8%.  In this world of grotesque and titanic lies it hardly seems to count and the tiny discrepancy was utterly meaningless, but to be fair and balanced, the Media can't actually take a stance and the truth is just a commodity. We need only a Pilatus to ask us Qui est Veritas in this sick passion play.

Is it any wonder we can no longer tell the difference? anything can be explained away, anything can be painted up as satanic and to our spinning heads the far fetched, ad hoc ad hominems and hilarious hypotheses about how he's not a rapist or a bigot or a racist or even a misogynist might just as likely be true as the unfettered conclusion that he' really is all of those things and William of Occam be damned. What, after all, is truth.