Trump, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, via Russia and Cambridge Analytica

It appears the flare-up between Trump and Saudi Arabia on one side and Qatar on the other may have been generated (for lack of a better word) by Russia and Cambridge Analytica. Oh how Putin loves to operate behind the scenes like a KGB agent.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/01/19/more-evidence-of-a-connection-between-russia-and-cambridge-analytica/

Even if Putin didn't personally call Trump and tell him to push Saudi Arabia to act against Qatar, this plan would have pushed him in that direction.

NSA Honestly Announces They Will No Longer Pledge to be Honest

The NSA has changed its mission statement, removing "honesty" and "openness". At least they did it openly and told us honestly.

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/24/nsa-core-values-honesty-deleted/

Tonkin Gulf II

If there is anything resembling a Tonkin Gulf story related to North Korea, the US Congress must weigh in and put themselves on the line with a decision whether to allow Donald Trump to use a war with N. Korea to deflect everyone's attention from his obvious incompetence and mental defects. The Republicans in Congress may be corrupt, but they have less to lose in the Trump Scandal and should be required to be responsible for American power of a magnitude and scope which could engulf America and the world.

What I Saw Today: The Drug War in West Virginia

First, to say it's a "War" may be an overstatement. Frankly at this point, the drug sellers are slaughtering West Virginians and there isn't much opposition which is slowing that.

Okay, for what I saw:

First today, I saw a newspaper headline which said the new Drug Czar for the state is retiring after about four months on the job.

Second, I saw that the mayor of Huntington has decided NOT to run for the Congressional seat which includes this county and city. He said the drug problem was the reason.

Third, I saw a man being resuscitated in the parking lot of a Taco Bell (near the Route 60 Walmart) and then Sheriff's Dept. police coming to search the car and its occupants. I don't know if any were arrested.

I also read that aside from murders, we now have more drug overdose deaths than (pretty much) anywhere in the nation. Keep in mind that this is a poor state and yet the drug dealers have found it to be profitable to sell here. That means they're not making a huge profit margin or they would go somewhere else.

What can be done to turn this around? Well, the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans are doing NOTHING. Yep. When they said to potential voters in 2016, "What have you got to lose?" they meant, "Vote for Trump and watch what happens when you lose everything. He promised to revive the coal industry and that is an impossibility when technological advances simply replace it with better energy sources at cheaper prices. That change has happened and there are no new coal-burning power plants being built in America. Wind and solar power are cheaper and battery technologies are coming every day and will soon be sufficient for any of our needs.

This means that with no coal industry in West Virginia there will be no good-paying jobs and the "way of life" the Republicans have been promising West Virginians they would protect (from Liberal Democrats of course) is still going to be as dead as a dodo very soon.

What I haven't yet seen is a solution to the drug problem aside from making it more profitable for the drug dealers to sell elsewhere and push them off onto other people. Apparently that has happened to bring them to us and it could happen to entice them to leave us. No other big solution has been suggested that I've heard.

Personally, I think that legalizing marijuana would help people to find an outlet for their frustrations without resorting to harder drugs. That might be wishful thinking, but it's a cheap thing to try. Other "War on Drugs" techniques involving billions of dollars and militarization of the police haven't kept drugs from WV. Why should we believe that doubling-down on that strategy would do more than bankrupt us?

The Balance of Power in America

Let's say, for a frame of reference, that Bernie Sanders is the Far Left in American politics and that Barack Obama was a little Left of Center and that Hillary Clinton would have been very Centrist or even a tiny bit Right of Center, that any of the Republicans who lost the 2015 primary battle for the presidential nomination (include Mike Pence) were Right of Center by a good margin, and that Donald Trump represented the Far Right.  Why did America end with Trump?

One thing that is more and more clear is that corporate America was perfectly happy to have a big tax cut and all the Republicans would have offered that. Hillary would probably not have done anything major with taxes.

But, this means ANY Republican would have suited them. Well, that's where the Republican primary failed to tame their Far Right voters and Vladimir Putin. There was an effort to get them to accept Putin's involvement and to act in a way that would have disqualified Trump. They (mostly Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky) refused.

So, why is there talk of Trump's 'incompetence' now? Sure, the corporations and rich people wanted a tax cut, but they have that and now they don't want to die in a nuclear holocaust. Why would Trump go that direction? He's gotten what he wanted and now he may want to retire before the Mueller investigation finds real dirt which would lead to jail time for Trump and his family & friends. But, if he's willing to keep pushing toward nuclear war there will have to be something done.

That may lead to "President Pence". The rich and corporations would be okay with that and the Republicans would be okay with that. They like low regulations, laissez-faire economics, slow growth and no complications such as Dems would cause.

They might believe Hillary would tend to continue the Obama economy, but they couldn't be certain. Besides, Pence will happily continue the Trump/Republican low regulations helpful government policies.

But, the American people voted more for Hillary. Too bad. They aren't currently outweighing the rich and corporations which are backing Republicans. Even if Putin is out of the picture, they will still be there giving money since the Republicans opened the Constitutional door with the Citizens United decision and the theft of a Supreme Court seat for the Conservative Neil Gorsuch. They are also continuing their other tactics to prevent Democrats fair representation in Congress.

But, if all this is true, then why did Barack Obama win twice? Why did Bill Clinton win twice? Economics. Aside from the tax cuts the rich want a slow-growing economy and not a Great Depression or even a Recession. In 1990-91 there was a recession during the Bush I presidency. That was part of how Clinton won. The other was Ross Perot's candidacy. In 2007-08 there was a huge recession and Obama walked away the winner.

So, if we don't have a recession or depression, when do Democrats get to win and when does our huge government debt get paid down? Never, if the rich and corporations have their way. They control America by giving money to Republican campaigns and the Republicans gerrymander and rig elections every way they can (including getting help from Russians).

If the majority of Americans ever want their voices heard they have to win and do some very fundamental changes to restore a better Democratic balance in American politics.

First it means we need a giant blue wave election to take power. That means keeping Trump as president until the entire Republican Party stinks to high heaven of Russian influence and criminal activity. Letting Mike Pence become president would be letting the Republicans off the hook entirely.

Second, once in power, Democrats have to change a lot of things to restore Democracy: neutral districting in all states, probably done by computer programs; eliminate jail time for possession and personal consumption of THC/marijuana; eliminate voter ID laws, ensure electronic voting machines can be verified (some are today, but some aren't); etc. etc. etc.

I don't know if there is a big day of reckoning a comin', but we need it if we are to continue calling ourselves a Democracy and not just a China wannabe. If the Oligarchic powers win, the people lose.

Incidentally, why would the rich and corporations want slow growth (the kind Obama with a Republican Congress delivered)? The rich who are growing older don't want to risk their wealth on real investments or on expanding businesses and hiring people in America to work. They want a sure thing (and zero taxes on their bequeathments to children): slow growth with low interest rates and a continuing large U.S. government debt which lets them buy bonds. I wouldn't even be surprised if Putin and other government leaders around the world want American bonds to be their piggy-bank, so low interest rates and slow growth is their view of a nice safe secure piggy-bank which doesn't kick them out. If the economy grows faster it raises interest rates and business becomes more challenging, wages go up, and their whole plan is harder to do. If government can pay down the debt (as Presidents Clinton and Obama were doing), then their piggy-bank may get broken. They don't want that, though their interests endanger America's future.

What kind of government do we have? A Democracy if we can keep it.

Nuclear Insanity?

When there was an "arms race" and both America and the Soviet Union were building nuclear ICBMs at a rate which endangered budgets, it was insane since there were far more weapons than we could ever use before extinguishing all life on the planet. It had to come to a halt.

Today I read that Russia is testing a new kind of weapons, a Hypersonic Glide Vehicle, and that China has tested one in November (and it may be ready for deployment today) and that America has been testing them and hopes to deploy them in the 2018-2022 time-frame.

Russia is testing new tech for its ICBMs - Business Insider

/begin-quote

"Why do they need such weapons?" Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with top military officials in December 2017. "I believe they want it for one thing – blackmail – as it creates an illusion of a possible strike with impunity."

"They are searching for some violations on our part while consistently infringing on it themselves," Putin said

/end-quote

The U.S. Navy's Ultimate Weapon: Hypersonic Missiles Fired from a Submarine | The National Interest Blog

I suppose that any time there is an idea and technology to improve a weapon system, there will be someone who will do it and sell the product to make a buck. That other nations would follow suit only makes sense. It's the 'arms race' all over again. Insanity rules.

Now that America is terribly in debt and all the projections show us going further and further into debt, can we not wonder if America is headed to the same fate as the Soviet Union (bankruptcy)? When does the insanity end, so living can continue?

I don't doubt that Putin's statement is self-serving and that as this technology emerged there would have been development by any nation which had it, thus leading others to do the same. That all world leaders are unable to use their brains to 'stop' seems universal and unrelated to ideology, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or any other categorization. Human fear just takes over (and it is easily argued that it's for good reason). But, at what point does reason also recognize the futility of this process? What does it take for people to stop wasting their resources, time and energy on developing things which should NEVER be used? Is this a disease which afflicts only those in power?

Maybe the story of Adam and Eve was correct, and that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is Evil. Maybe we would be better to not have knowledge. But here we are, we know the facts and yet we lack some critical factor which enables us to change to something we all recognize as being better. It's a tragedy.