Day: November 21, 2016

Closing Thought–21Nov16

During the Obama years there was lots of lip popping about the coming NWO, New World Order….how he and his cronies were setting the stage for the coming horror of the movies…..

A great term but only used by the semi-literate that have NO knowledge of anything beyond the headlines on Breitbart or Infowars…silly conspiracies and all that.

The origin of the term has its birth with conspiracy nuts and fundamentalist Christians……but in case you do not pay any attention to bullshit let me help………..

According to popular conspiracy theories, this authoritarian world government plans on replacing sovereign nation-states, and the organization features an ideology that believes that the establishment of a New World Order is the culmination of history. Conspiracy theorists speculate that significant occurrences in politics and finances are orchestrated by an influential cabal that works behind-the-scenes to achieve their own agenda. There are numerous historical and current events that conspiracy theorists see as steps in an active plot to achieve world domination through decision-making progresses and secret political gatherings.

Before the 1990s, New World Order conspiracy theories were limited to two primary countercultures in America: the militantly anti-government right-wing and fundamentalist Christians concerned with the end of the world scenario in relation to the Antichrist. Skeptics have noticed that such conspiracy theories have not only been embraced by many individuals seeking stigmatized knowledge but also seeped into instances of popular culture.

Now every nut wad that can spell will be pointing at those “hidden” socialists and the coming of the New World Order.

I bring this all up for I would like to see just how these “people” handle this subject now that they so astutely elected an “Outsider”….(did that sound like sarcasm?)

How long will Pres. Trump have before these nutjobs start accusing him of trying to implement the NWO?

I Remember Trent

Nine years ago this month the US Senate no. 2 Repub, Trent Lott, offers up his resignation….26Nov07 to be exact……

This took the country by surprise…..

Lott, 66, said he had notified President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Sunday about his plans. Barbour, a Republican, will name someone to temporarily replace Lott.

This was not unexpected……you see a couple years prior he had made some inappropriate comments……

The smooth-spoken Lott found himself in hot water in December 2002 after Thurmond’s party.   Lott said Mississippi voters were proud to have supported Thurmond when he ran for president on a segregationist platform in 1948, and added: “If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.”

A few days later, Lott issued a statement saying he had made “a poor choice of words” that “conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.”

But the damage was done. President Bush distanced himself from Lott’s remarks, telling an audience the comments “do not reflect the spirit of our country.”

Sad to see a good man good down right?  Not to worry he became a super high paid lobbyists……

I stroll down this nostalgic path because of the choice Trump has made for his AG….Sen. Jeff Sessions……

Donald Trump has made two more key picks for his administration: He’s chosen GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama for attorney general and Republican congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas to lead the CIA, reports Politico. Both will require Senate confirmation, and the AP notes that Sessions could run into trouble because he has been by dogged by accusations of racism over the years. More coverage on that and more:

  • When the 69-year-old Sessions was up for a federal judgeship in 1986, four different lawyers testified that he made racist comments. One black prosecutor accused Sessions of calling him “boy” and of joking that he thought the KKK was fine “until I found out they smoked pot.” Sessions, who also allegedly called the NAACP “un-American,” didn’t get the post. See CNN.
  • In a “10 things to know” post about Sessions, the Washington Post notes that he was in 2014 called “amnesty’s worst enemy” by the National Review for his hardline positions on immigration. See the full list here.
  • A take from Politico: Sessions “is well-regarded by his Republican colleagues, although his breed of hardline conservatism falls outside the GOP mainstream. He is opposed to creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and a vocal critic of marijuana legalization, though he worked with the Obama administration and Democrats on legislation supported by civil rights groups that reduced the sentencing disparity for cocaine possession.”
  • Sessions was Trump’s first supporter in the Senate, and he played down Trump’s comments in the infamous Access Hollywood leaked tape, notes the Huffington Post.
  • Sessions’ official Senate bio is here.

Sessions is more than qualified by his experience to be AG…..but I ask will his racist rants hold the same weight as they did when Lott made them?

My guess is…they WILL NOT!  His disqualification before was 30 years ago and the country has become more tolerant of racist thought in those years.

Is There A Trump Mandate?

First, is anyone else sick of the term “Black Friday” yet?

I have read and heard so much about this past election that it is now getting damn right boring….his supporters keep telling me about the mandate he and the GOP have now that he is prez…….

Okay, what exactly is Trump’s mandate…not what you think it is but what is his stated mandate?  Or does that matter?

Mandate is a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative…..

(I will pause here for a quick Google search for his supporters because they have NO idea other than his social media ramblings)

Within days of the U.S. general election, central elements of the result have already entered into American mythology: the revenge of the “white working class voter”; the unprecedented anti-establishment character of the President-elect; the populist revolution that led to Trump’s victory; and the years in the wilderness now facing Democrats and progressives in America.

But the endless repetition of these themes by the corporate media deserves a great deal more skepticism and scrutiny before they worm their way into all our heads to form the established and accepted narrative of this election. Let’s first review some basic facts about what happened on Nov. 8:

Source: The Non-Existent Trump Mandate – Consortiumnews

I listened closely to all his speeches and tried to follow his Tweets but I have a life and it was beyond tedious……there was so much contradictory stuff from his lips that I am not sure about anything he has on his mind…..

And then there is his search for the SecState…..there are so many factions jockeying for the inside position….I worry about who will be the winner…..

In recent history, a presidential election which puts the other major party in power has led to a pretty orderly transfer of power, with each party having its own collection of usual suspects that quickly and predictably fill in all the top spots. President-elect Donald Trump’s outsider status, and the number of Republican leadership figures openly opposed to his campaign, means he doesn’t have such a ready-made cabinet, nor likely the inclination to install one.

Instead, Trump’s cabinet is being assembled very publicly, amid a battle that includes neo-conservatives and establishment hawks arrayed against a group of outsiders including the libertarian right, Tea Party Republicans, and a bloc of realists who would normally not be in line for top positions.

Many of the neo-cons and the rest of the establishment had a substantial “Never Trump” bloc that opposed his election  appear to feel entitled to the top positions in the cabinet, and indeed, Trump seems to be entertaining candidate like ultrahawk John Bolton for some of his biggest positions.

Source: GOP Factions Battle Over Control of Trump’s Foreign Policy — News from Antiwar.com

This position and DoD will tell me all I need to know about the direction that our foreign policy will travel……

His choices point to a mandate to this writer….but I am not positive so I will withhold me impressions ….for now.

Maybe this is something we all should worry about and not what star is dancing to what song…..just a thought!

The Myth Of The Women’s Vote

During the campaign of 2016 the public was bombarded almost daily about the women’s vote…..how Trump had lost them and they were the way forward for Hillary….

All those polls were a bit off…..as they always are….only this time the public was more gullible than in the past.

This is a good op-ed on the myth of the women’s vote……

Among the clichés that deserve to be thrown out after the recent presidential election in the US is the idea of “women’s vote.”
It may seem surprising that only 54 percent of the female electorate voted for Hillary Clinton, the first woman nominated for president by a major party. But while gender is a strong marker for how Americans think about certain issues, it is not the best predictor of how they will vote. It turns out that female candidates do not face a single gender gap, but rather multiple gender gaps.

Source: The myth of the women’s vote | Arab News

According to all the surveys Hillary had all the major demographics…..women….Latinos….Asians…..Blacks……Millennials and yet she had her ass handed to her by Mr. Trump……at least in the Electoral College….and that is where it counts (more on that in a later post)……

Africa and the First World War

We are in the process of remembering the first World War….the world’s first modern war…..and the beginning of American interventionism….we all should study the causes and the effects……for this war created the world we know today.

A friend was teaching a class on the First World War….he knew of my interests on the conflict and asked if I knew anything about the war’s effect on Africa…I told him I knew more about the conflict and the Middle East but he asked if I would come lecture to his class on the African campaign….

ASkara soldiers at shooting practice in German East Africa

A million people died in East Africa alone during the First World War. Many Africans also fought in Europe, defending the interests of their colonial masters. Today, their sacrifice has been largely forgotten.

The most impressive monument for African victims of the First World War (1914-1918) is not to be found in Africa but in France. At the battle of Delville, one of the engagements of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, the South African 1st Infantry Brigade sustained heavy casualties. John Del Monde knows the site well. He is a member of the board of the South African Legion veterans’ association. Together with partner associations from other Commonwealth member states, he has made it his life’s work to keep alive the memory of all those who fought for the British monarchy. To mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, ceremonies are being held in South Africa and Namibia and a new monument unveiled in Flanders, Del Monde told DW.

Source: Africa and the First World War | World War I | DW.COM | 16.04.2014

I was pleased to see the interests that the students showed in this part of the conflict……few sources on World War One seldom mention the deaths by Africans that fought in Europe….

I hope this lecture help some realize the scope of the deaths in WW1.