Trashing Trump

I don't like Donnie "tiny hands". I see him as an arrogant, authoritarian, oligarch, and a masterful con man....but the constant negative media hysteria about Trump plays right into his "fake news" meme. Even when he does something I think is positive, like peace with Korea or Russia, he is portrayed as evil and submitting to the communists. The Trumpeteers see it too, and it is uniting his base. More and more I see it as theater to distract the masses. Because all the while Trump and his administration have been stacking the courts, deregulating everything, dismantling public services, capitalizing the corporations, and promoting wars and coups. I agree with Jimmy and Ron...I don't like Trump, but I'm not going to let him rob me of my critical thinking skills.

Much of the hoopla is created by the media. Remember the $hill's emails asking MSM to play up T-rump before his nomination...which they definitely did...showing his empty podium while ignoring Bernie speaking to tens of thousands, allowing call-ins to every news show almost every morning, lobbing him softball questions. But after his nomination, suddenly switch and bait ... he is horrible, terrible, grabbing women, and so on. Then after he wins the election, they really turn it on full force...he's a Russian agent, Russia elected him, T-rump bad, bad, bad...and like most good propaganda there is some truth, he is bad...but so was Obomber. More and more I think we have a media controlled by the CIA et al, shadow government. I use to think it was just corporate media trying to maximize profit, but I've grown to think it is more nefarious. Operation mockingbird on steroids, no longer even trying to hide the fact. https://thefreethoughtproject.com/fbi-impersonate-media-mockingbird/

Did any of you find it odd that they raided T-rump's lawyers office? What happened to attorney client privilege?

The raid was overseen by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan and was based in part on a referral from Mueller, said Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan. “The decision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York to conduct their investigation using search warrants is completely inappropriate and unnecessary,” Ryan said in a statement. “It resulted in the unnecessary seizure of protected attorney client communications between a lawyer and his clients.”

https://www.snopes.com/ap/2018/04/10/trump-raid-lawyer-abuses-attorney-c...

Among the core exceptions to attorney-client privilege is the “crime-fraud exception,” which means that communications between you and your attorney about future criminal acts are not protected.

https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trump-does-not-understand-attorney-clie...

So it is all about paying a sex partner to be quiet about an affair...but I thought Mueller was investigating Russian connections? It all smacks of a hit job to me...and I'm sure his supporters are aware. I don't think this irrational, hyperbolic, hair on fire ranting and raving serve any purpose other than promoting his policies.

From the FBI to the New York Times to Hollywood, everyone has their knife out for Trump.

So let's try to look at this weeks news in order to clarify our understanding, and escape the mind warping media spin by looking at the nature of journalism.

Chomsky discusses the issues with media this week. Here are some gems from Noam's interview...(video or text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/27/noam_chomsky_on_mass_media_obsession

...media, I think, are focusing on issues which are pretty marginal. There are much more serious issues that are being put to the side. So, the worst of—even on the case of immigration, once again, I think the real question is dealing with the roots of immigration, our responsibility for it, and what we can do to overcome that. And that’s almost never discussed. But I think that’s the crucial issue

So, of all Trump’s policies, the one that is the most dangerous and destructive, in fact poses an existential threat, is his policies on climate change, on global warming. That’s really destructive. And we’re facing an imminent threat, not far removed, of enormous damage. The effects are already visible but nothing like what’s going to come. A sea level rise of a couple of feet will be massively destructive. It will make today’s immigration issues look like trivialities.

...if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done, I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies—what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to—calling on them to reverse U.S. policy, without even informing the president?

In massive ways, the concentrated private capital, corporate sector, super wealth, intervene in our elections, massively, overwhelmingly, to the extent that the most elementary principles of democracy are undermined. Now, of course, all that is technically legal, but that tells you something about the way the society functions. So, if you’re concerned with our elections and how they operate and how they relate to what would happen in a democratic society, taking a look at Russian hacking is absolutely the wrong place to look

NATO expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in violation of verbal promises to Mikhail Gorbachev, mostly under Clinton, partly under first Bush, then Clinton expanded right to the Russian border, expanded further under Obama. The U.S. has offered to bring Ukraine into NATO. That’s the kind of a heartland of Russian geostrategic concerns. So, yes, there’s tensions at the Russian border—and not, notice, at the Mexican border.

The entire series is worth a read or listen. Much of it focused on immigration...
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/27/brutal_and_sadistic_noam_chomsky_on (video or text)

... these people are fleeing from the wreckage and horrors of U.S. policies. So, essentially, what President Trump is saying is, we’ll destroy your countries, slaughter you, impose brutal regimes, but if you try to get out, you’re not going to come here, because America is full.

I'm always suspicious when both parties and all the media is pushing the same meme. Aren't you?

Q: What do the following wildly diverse people and institutions have in common: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Fox News’ Shepard Smith, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, The New York Times and The Weekly Standard, The National Review and the Daily Kos?
A: All agree that Donald Trump’s July 16 meeting and press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki were, in Senator John McCain’s words, “a tragic mistake,” if not “treasonous” (the term used by former CIA director John Brennan). McCain declared that “the damage inflicted by President Trump’s naivety, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate.” The chorus singing this same tune now ranges from liberal columnists like Charles M. Blow and Tom Friedman to unrepentant neo-cons like Max Boot, Republican Hawks like Newt Gingrich, and pretty much every former head of the CIA, DIA, and NSA still alive. A remarkable amalgam of left- and right-leaning pols and pundits, whose unity, however temporary, demands explanation.

https://therealnews.com/the-empire-lovers-strike-back-trump-putin-and-th...

Bob Scheer interviews Nick Goldberg, editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, about the billionaire doctor-entrepeneur now running the business “Can a major-market paper owned by even a benevolent, deep-pocketed sponsor continue to cover potentially controversial stories about, say, the economy? “They are people that have benefited from a certain kind of capitalism,” Scheer says of the billionaire class. (30 min podcast)
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/nick-goldberg-on-the-l-a-times-reboot-...

Nice interview with text or audio by Bob Scheer and Sy Hersh, two experienced journalists.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/seymour-hersh-still-afflicting-the-com...

Larry Wilkerson discusses the hit job directed at him on the Bill Maher Show...
https://therealnews.com/stories/bill-maher-leads-attack-on-larry-wilkers...

Public Citizen showed in a new report on Friday that news reports largely ignore the link between the climate crisis and the extreme heat that is currently enveloping cities and regions all over the world. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/27/new-report-documents-corpor...

We can't discuss journalist without mentioning Julian Assange and the way we are going after truth tellers.

Julian Assange is a step closer to being evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after President Lenin Moreno said the whistleblower must "eventually" leave the facility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYXNCUcKiKA (2.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TowQeyc9tA (4 min)

Jimmy Dore expresses his opinion about Julian's situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7_2M9DqOFQ (23 min)

Jimmy has been hosting RT news replacing Ed Schultz this week. He has been paired with a RW model who he obviously doesn't like nor respect. Here they are discussing the media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssqk_Nkx-4c (28 min)

Oddly enough sometimes the right wingers get it right. Jimmy explain how Tucker Carlton tripped on the truth and called it out....sort of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtPhXsIExwI (23 min)

Many think an economic collapse is eminent. https://therealnews.com/series/the-next-global-financial-crisis-is-inevi... (2 parts video or text)

In the regulatory environment banks borrow more and make riskier loans and “no one is watching them” says, professor Gerald Epstein (video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/is-there-another-financial-crisis-in-the...

The cult of self is explored in a new film "Generation Wealth". Photographer and filmmaker, Lauren Greenfield, discusses the film with journalist Chris Hedges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60NxjD4dWro (28 min)

Corporations and the rich are feasting on most of the growth while workers see their wages fall. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/27/you-cant-eat-gdp-reminder-m...

A quick trip...AROUND the WORLD...

The US expands its military around the world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzDm9UvKTAk (5.5 min)

The America's
Cuba's new constitution (video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/cubas-new-draft-constitution-institution...

A mere ten years ago almost all countries in South and Central America had left or center-left governments in office. Now only a handful remain
https://therealnews.com/stories/the-role-the-us-played-in-reversing-lati... (15 min)

Thomas Shannon was the third-ranking official in the US State Department, and most influential regarding relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Here's fictional version of his resignation letter, however the events and facts described therein are well documented, quite real, and ongoing.
https://therealnews.com/a-note-about-our-backyard-advice-that-thomas-sha...

Middle East and Asia

Imran Khan’s Pakistan Justice Movement (PTI) wins the most seats of any single party in parliament, says Junaid Ahmad, Professor of Middle Eastern Politics at the University of Lahore
https://therealnews.com/stories/cricket-star-imran-khan-breaks-the-party...

A spike in oil prices as a result of a temporary halt in shipments through the strategic Bab el Mandeb strait may be short-lived, but the impact on Yemen’s three-year-old forgotten war is likely to put the devastating conflict on the front burner.
The halt following a Saudi assertion that Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had attacked two Saudi oil tankers traversing the waterway drives home the threat the conflict poses to a chokepoint in international trade and the flow of Gulf oil to world markets. The Houthis said they had attacked a Saudi warship rather than oil tankers.
https://therealnews.com/saudi-oil-shipment-halt-a-potential-watershed-in...

Trump and his neocon advisors have been trying to provoke a war with Iran and Syria for many months. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/07/28/looming-war-against-iran

Contemptuous of international law, the US makes no secret of its plots to overthrow the leaders of internationally recognized governments that reject the neoliberal New World Order. Iran is at the top of the US enemies list https://therealnews.com/iran-us-regime-change-project-is-immoral-and-ill...

Trump and his oligarchs lead us down a path of destruction by force feeding us fossil fuels, expanding our endless wars, and privatizing public services. It is time for the hunger strike. Capitalism has run its course creating unfathomable inequality while promoting the poverty of the majority...in the richest country the world has ever known. The technique to create this sort of insanity is to distract, mislead, and omit essential information. It has been a path we've been on for awhile. Do we possess the ability to see our way clear...to create a new future? Our very survival as a species is at stake.

I come more and more to the conclusion we must act as individuals to secure a situation that promotes our personal health and possible survival. Perhaps we are headed to a dystopia, but in the meantime can you carve out a corner of your world to promote your happiness? A place where you can be with friends and like minded folks. A place where you can be productive in a meaningful way. It is time for us all to focus on peace. We may not be able to create world peace, but I hope you all find a little peace within yourself and your surroundings...I think that is what we can seek to achieve.