There are quite a few things that can be learned from the “Hush Money” trial of Donald J. Trump. Just two, to start with. The dual or multi leveled Justice system and Jury selection and how hard we work to keep it fair.
First the simplest, the jury selection process in our courts. It has taken one an a half days to get the first 12 prospective jurors seated and starting the culling process. Look at how many people were dismissed just because they were not confident they could be fair and unbiased. This says something about the common citizen that so many people were honest enough with themselves to say “I’m not sure I can be fair in this case.” And while not all, not even the majority, said this, some did. Just think what this says about your fellow Americans. We take this duty of siting as a juror very seriously.
So next let’s look at just what this one trial says about the accusation that we have a two, or multi, tiered Justice system. I know this has been one of the major talking points of Trump and his supporters, but this trial is showing just how it works. Just not in the way Trump wants you to think it is working.
Trump is not the victim of the multi-tiered justice system, he is the beneficiary. In just this one case he has been treated much kinder than the average Joe Blow or Jane Row. Just go and find your average criminal lawyer and ask them how the court treats the average defendant who ignores and/or violates court orders? Then look at how Trump is being treated. Are they even close to being the same?
Then look at the number of motions that Trump has moved before the trial even got to jurry selection? Ask how many of the motions even met the basic standard of being non-frivolous?
I think you will be both shocked and offended by what you find. It is like Trump said in the “Access Hollywood tape”, “When you’re famous you get to do that….”. It would seem to go double when your both Rich and Famous. So keep your eyes open with all the Trump cases, we are about to learn about all the little secrets the “Privileged Set” don’t want you to know.
P.S. It is also going to show the MAGA leadership that getting people all riled up over the way the average Joe/Jane is treated can have unintended consequences.
Mankind has had to deal with the use and uncontrolled spread of “misinformation” for a very long time. Before the invention of the printing press rumor (misinformation) was not easy to spread anonymously as it was mostly by word of mouth. But with the invention of the printing press it became quite easy to create pamphlets that were next to impossible to trace back to their originator.
The United States has had to deal with the issues of rapid change in speed and distance information travels almost since it founding. With the coming of the Electric Telegraph in the 1840’s the speed at which news (information) and rumors (disinformation) shank amazingly. It is hard for us who live in the 21st century to comprehend but once it could take days for news to travel from Boston to New York City and to reach New Orleans could take weeks or months. But once the Telegraph lines were in place it would only take hours, and most of that time was taken getting the message to and from the Telegraph office. Once we got the transatlantic cable (1865 for the first successful cable) time went from 2 weeks to 2 minutes (or so the cable company bragged).
Once the Telegraph was in use in towns of almost any size we see the local newspapers printing news from faraway places like the county seat, the state capital, or can you believe it, Washington DC. An it was only a couple of days old. What a marvel this modern age of 1870 is!
Things stayed fairly stable for a few decades but in the 1890’s with the successful development of the etheric Radio and it’s acceptance for ship to shore communications in the early 20th (1910’s) things were set for a big change. By the 1920’s we now had common radio telegraphy and commercial radio stations and even nightly news casts. But let us not forget the Telephone was also coming into everyday life, not only the very wealthy had them in there homes, people of moderate income had them. An even boarding houses had them in the hallways. At the same time as radio and Telephone were becoming common and changing things we got the new ‘entertainment’ the Motion Picture! At the movie theater you not only got a show but more often than not you got a “News Reel”. Now you could read about the news, hear the news and see the news.
Then, in the 1950’s we got Television and things both speeded up and got easier to get. This is where I come into the picture as I grew up with TV, and Transistor Radios. But still we had the same basic problem, all the communications was in one direction. To the consumer. The people who gathered the information and sent it out had very little, and most was of low quality, knowledge of what the audience was interested in. So then came the 1990’s and the arrival of the desktop computer and the internet. Who could have seen just what a big effect it was going to have back in the early 90’s. Not me, that is for certain.
And let us not over look the “Cell”/“Smart” phone. Nor should we over look the coming of the tablet computer (now simply called a tablet). At the same time as the coming of the tablet we also have the arrival of WiFi everywhere, even on city buses. Was it only 2012 when I was amazed at being able to get the internet out in the boonies of the Mohave in Antelope Valley (CA)? Well it was. So now we live in a world where most kids over the age of 8 (?) have both a phone and a tablet. A both devices have ten(s) if not hundred(s) of apps that connect to the internet almost anywhere we go. So just what does this mean to the growth of disinformation?
It means we need to develop tools and methods of identifying and filtering all of the information for its “validity”. By Validity I just mean the quality of the facts, if it reports to be facts, or the real person putting forth an opinion. We need a very reliable methods and tools to separate things, before we even look at them ourselves. We need a way to know if the originator of the information is someone we know and if we don’t know them, a way to find out just who they are. We need tools and methods to separate “real persons” from “bots”.
All of this is possible, trust me here, I’ve seen equally impossible things happen in the past 73 years. The kids can do it and all we have to do is point out the problem to them and say “Help”. We did it for our parents and grandparents and our kids and grand kids can do it for us. Not that it will be easy, it won’t. There are too many people with too much money, with too much at stake to let this happen. But once again we have been thru this before and succeeded. We have already started to make some changes, in the Law, in how we work, how we educate and we can find an do more. We just have to look for the answers, they are out there.
With the changing of the guard at the RNC and the placing of both MAGA and Trump loyalist in the top leadership we need to change both the symbol of the Republican Party and its nickname . I propose these two:
For the symbol:
And for the Nickname TOP (Trump’s Own Party). I particularly like TOP as it will appeal to not only Trumps ego but will also tell everyone just who is in charge. Even when Trump dies, they will still need to have a “Trump” leading the Party. At lest until the Trump line dies out, you know, like the “Claudio-Julians” at the end of the Roman Republic.
The symbol is a bit more shaky, but I still think it captures the spirit of the Party. A party run by women but with a male figurehead who takes all the credit. Just like an African Lions pride. The man just sits around all day, ready to chase away any other male. Screwing the all the women who do the actual work. And bragging to everyone how hard he works and how great everything he does, is. And all the females let him get away with it.
The only issue I see with these changes is that they might just be too truthful and on the mark. MAGA and the TOP don’t really feel comfortable with the truth being out where everyone can see it. They like the truth to be kept in a deep dark dungeon chained to the wall and starved.
I was 17 back in 1968, one of the most important Presidential elections I ever voted in. No I didn’t cheat. My parents told my older brother , Al, and me that they would cast the vote for president we wanted. Papa for Al and Momma for me. This was because both of us were facing the draft and going off to the Vietnam War. I had been aware of presidential elections since 1964 (LBJ vs. Goldwater) but what the parties and candidates stood for really didn’t sink in. 1968 was totally different. For many reasons.
I shan’t go into the politics as you can find way too many books, blogs, podcasts, etc on that era. I’m going to talk about myself, personally. First of I was NOT a flower child nor hippie. I was quite emphatic in my being a radical “Middle of the Bird” (see Rowan & Martin Laugh-In). Also, like now, I have total intolerance of hypocrisy. I came by this both naturally and from the 60’s culture. The easiest and quickest way to get me to reject your idea is to appear to be hypocritical.
For example: If you want to have a “Double Standard” where you get to have or do something you do not want others to have or do I will accept the idea if you will just admit you want a double standard and not say that double standards are bad. The problem I have finally learn is that getting a double standard and saying you don’t like double standards is an application of the double standard. I couldn’t win. I challenge you to find a single ‘hypocrite’ who will admit to hypocrisy.
For all you out there who the 1960’s is just a decade in your history books, the 1960’s was a time where the teenagers of the decade took great joy in calling there elders “Hypocrites” in loud pear-shaped tones. While I think I rarely said this to my parents, I hope I didn’t, I did do it in school, clubs, and shouting at the TV. Please note that changing your mind was all too often taken as hypocrisy back then and I had a long hard road learning to tell the difference.
With time, age and a heart attack I think I’ve changed some. I still hold hypocrisy in great disdain but I hope I do not call it out so self righteously as my 18 year old self did. An if you find some of my ideas odd or dated please just remember where I came from.
Once more I am moved to bang my head against the wall and talk about gun violence. I wish to talk about why someone/anyone’s 2nd amendment right to own any gun they wish trumps all other rights we have. An surprise it is logical but not reasonable.
The right to own any kind of gun is superior to all other rights because of the basic postulate the person starts with. Most of the time this postulate will not be acknowledged but it is there none the less. It is simply stated as follows “I get to do what I want to do because I want to do it.”
This translates into the debates on rights simple as “My rights are superior to everyone else’s rights.” Therefore your right to life must give way to my right to own any gun I want. This works if and only if a personal rights have either a Hierarchy or are unequal. Many people who have not studied the history and evolution of thought on constitutional rights fall into. No right is superior or takes precedence over any other right. They are all equal. The problem is when they come in to conflict. Or when someone uses a right to do wrong. Usually these conflicts are easy to identify when they happen. Unfortunately the misuse of guns it is not.
The other problem we have to deal with is what do we do when a right is misused? Usually the law try’s to make whole, again, when the right is miss used. Like damages for libel/slander when the right of free speech is misused. Again, unfortunately, when a gun is misused it is often impossible to make whole the victim of the miss use. How do you restore life to the dead, or an arm, leg, and or eye?
So I ask you, what should we do? The misuse of the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms all to often has irreparable effects and the victim can not be made whole no mater what we do?
Something we all should think about is just what will happen if the GQP/MAGA win in 2024. I will not go into what some liberals fear, but rather just what the Republican Party and its leadership have promised to deliver upon election to power.
First and foremost remember that unless the coming Republican Convention does as it did in the last election the GQP takes as its platform what ever Donald Trump says it is for. Nothing more Nothing less. The Republicans, as a political party only promises only to do as Trump directs. So forget what Republican Leaders like the Governors of Florida and Texas are doing now. Forget what they are saying in Congress. Pay no attention to what the blogs are saying. None of it maters. All that maters is what Donald Trump does.
So what can we expect? We can’t go by what he says as he really has a hard time delivering on what he promises. Like his wall on the southern border that Mexico would pay for. Or that Covid-19 would be just a memory before the election of 2020. In fact the only promises he does seem to follow thru on is when he promises to get ’even’ with someone. Now those are promises he seems to go out of his way to keep.
So we should be expecting the GQP to enable the next Republican President to take ”full direct control” of the DOJ, DOD, Internal Revenue Service, just to name a few. We should see the Democratic party both directly and indirectly attacked an emasculated to the maximum extent possible. We should see the State election officials also attacked with the aim of bringing them under the control of the GQP. This will includes every ’Purple’ and ’Blue’ state possible.
I would also expect to see as many of the people held responsible by Trump for his Impeachments to be brought up on as many criminal charges as possible. I also expect to see a total house cleaning of ’disloyal’ Republicans (aka RINOs) from the party. Also look for the aggrandizement of anyone Trump believes might be of use to him.
Finally look for a lot of infighting behind the scenes and under the table.
Back in 2015 I wrote a post here called “Acceptable Casualty Rate” where I talked about why we have a problem with Guns. Today I am not going to be so detached…..You Have Been Warned.
With the latest mass shooting in a school I am, once more hearing two things repeatedly said: ”How/Why did this happen?” And ”How can this be prevented?” In the first case the answer is simple ”It’s what we want.” The second is just as bad ”We Cann’t. Get used to it.”
Why do I say we want it is simple. Just look at the length of time we have been having mass shooting and just what has been done. Little or nothing is being done and it is happening because two super PACs are perfectly happy with the situation. Both the Gun manufactures and their totally captive NRA see no reason to change. The manufactures don’t want change because any change will impact negatively their profits. The NRA because it would decrease their Power and influence.
So we are left with ’thoughts and prayers’ and little else. What they don’t tell you is we MUST live with it because they find the casualty rate quite acceptable. But ask yourself this ”Why do they find it Acceptable?” To be brutal the answer is simple, they are not the ones suffering the casualties.
It is something anyone who studies military history learns early on is that when you are not the one who has to suffer the casualties the highest casualties quickly become acceptable. Now I know some of you will disagree but just go study some wars (WWI is a good place to start) and look just how far back from the front lines the people who decided to fight the battle were. In any-case it is my view that if the families of the heads of all the Gun Manufactures and the NRA were among the people who are put at risk things would change.
Not going to happen.
So what happens now? Until the general electorate is ready to make our government (all three branches, mind you) be more afraid of us than they are of the the Gun PACS nothing will change. So get it in your head this single thought:
Fifty years ago, yesterday, I voted for the first time. Ever since then I’ve celebrated and today is no different. What is different is I’m not just say ”Go Vote”. Today I’m saying ”Go Vote like the Nation depends on it.”
This time I’m truly worried for the Nation this time. The ’election deniers’, the ultra extremist MAGA who promise that if elected that Republicans will never loose another election have succeeded in scaring me.
So let me say this. Any candidate, for any office, who says the following does not deserve your vote.
The 2020 election was stollen.
I will not except the results where I do not win
That 1/6/21 was NOT an attempted Insurrection.
It is up to everyone who believes in the American Way to totally and completely shutdown this kind of talk and behavior. So please, if you do reject this kind of thought and behavior and have not yet voted, Go Vote!
The other day I came across, on my daily walk, what I took to be ”Time Capsule” that appeared to have been washed down from the mountains. The only problem is that everything seems to be dated from 220 AT. When I first saw it I thought it might be from the early Spanish Mission period of the San Fernando Valley. It was a square box of about 11” and about 5” tall. It seemed to be made out of kilned backed adobe. Upon closer examination I detected the use of a wire meshing made of coper wire. So definitely not from the Spanish Mission period.
The contents of the box turned out to be what appear to be some kind of analog sound recordings (3). Five USB sicks, and two SDD drives. Along with over 40 pages from what appears to be magazines, but not made of paper. Most pages did have pictures and many have what appears to be dates but have no relationship to any known calendar.
3 Ivana 211 AT
11 Baron 193 AT
29 Don 219
This last goes with a picture that show what seems to be some kind of ceremony taking place in the Capital in Washington D.C. It is captioned “The Assumption of power by Barron III, Trump and Autocrat of all the States”. In the picture is one person, presumably Barron III, before a line of men, no women are in the photograph, who are placing there hands between his, while they are kneeling.
Another photo is of a woman inspecting what appears to be a heavily fortified wall with a large number of bones on one side. The photograph is captioned ”Ivana II inspecting the Great Wall of the South”. Most of the pages with out photographs, have drawing and seem to deal with the Great accomplishments of Trump (again this seems to be a title and not a persons name). Other pages deal with the accomplishments of what are called Boss of Bosses, Great Boss, Bosses, and Little Boss. It seems that the Boss of Bosses is appointed by the Trump, but just what their responsibilities are is not clear. The Great Bosses seem to run the States, the Bosses counties and the little Bosses cities and towns.
This last maybe in error as there are several references to State governors, and Mayors of large cities. It is quite possible that the term “Boss” in all it’s forms is just slang. Until further study of the Box and it’s contents can be done any conclusions drawn are pure Speculation. Finally, the idea that the ”Time Capsule” is actually from either the future or an alternate time line is pure fiction.
With the news of SCOTUS on Roe Vs Wade and the New York gun law along with what the Trump Mob tried to do last year I think it is time to say something about the people who don’t vote.
If you live in a Red state or district, or if it is even Purple and you don’t vote you are actually voting for the Republican candidate. An they like you not voting. They want you to not vote. Their bass is very motivated and will do what ever the Mob Boss tells them to do. Their is only one thing that can be done. Get out and vote. NOW!
If you don’t you are just empowering Capo Trump. An it will be you fault if they get control of the Congress. So remember, not Voting is what the Capo is betting you will do. Prove him Wrong.
