Thoughts on politics, economics, life and creative works from the author including poetry
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Legalized Criminality
Saturday, April 10, 2021
RIP Chief
Friday, February 12, 2021
Trump aimed them at the Capitol on the 6th
In Trump’s speech to the people he’d asked to come to DC and
march on the Capital he gives a long speech in which he says
“After this, we’re
going to walk down — and I’ll be there with you — we’re going to walk down,
we’re going to walk down — anyone you want, but I think right here — we’re
going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators
and congressmen and women. And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much
for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you
have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that
Congress do the right thing, and only count the electors who have been lawfully
slated — lawfully slated. I know that
everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully
and patriotically make your voices heard today.”
Trump uses
the word “peacefully” and “patriotically” as code for, “you will break into the
capitol and demand the count stop!” Being
“strong” and being “peaceful” have opposite meanings in his rhetoric. It is also his pattern of inciting violence
but leaving wiggle room in his speech so he can deny he said what he obviously
said. He is no more credible here than a
Mob Boss telling an associate to “do him” about a person he is putting a hit
on. And he goes on to make one false
allegation of corruption, cheating, fraudulent votes coupled with asks for the
mob in front of him to take action. Threatening congress. He accuses Democrats of:
“oppos [ing] every effort to
clean up their voter rolls. They don't want to clean them up. They're loaded.”
Tells the
mob to not only to stop the certification of the count but force the congress to
pass sweeping legislation.
“So
today, in addition to challenging the certification of the election, I'm
calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping
election reforms, and you better do it before we have no country left.”
He says:
“Today is not the end, it's just
the beginning.
And after
accusing Democrats and turncoats of every manner of fraud,He says:
“We must stop the steal and then we must ensure that such
outrageous election fraud never happens again, can never be allowed to happen
again.”
He tells his
mob:
“Don't let them talk. OK, well, we promised. I've had a lot of people.
Sir, you're at 96% for four years. I said I'm not interested right now. I'm
interested in right there.”
He tells them, their mob will:
“Together, we will drain the Washington swamp and we will clean up the
corruption in our nation's capital.”
He tells them that their insurrection is actually stopping a takeover of
the country:
“If we allow this group of people to illegally take over our
country because it's illegal when the votes are illegal when the way they got
there is illegal when the states that vote are given false and fraudulent information.”
Then he tells them to fight like hell!
“I think one of our great achievements will be election
security. Because nobody until I came along had any idea how corrupt our
elections were.”
“And again, most people would stand there at 9 o'clock in the
evening and say I want to thank you very much, and they go off to some other
life. But I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have
happened.”
“And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like
hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”
Then he sets them to march:
“So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania
Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're
going to try and give.”
“The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not
even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones
because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give
them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
“So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
And he aimed them at Congress!
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial
Saturday, February 6, 2021
QAnon is psyop, Daniel Morrison lays it out
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Chocolate still tastes like Chocolate
Monday, February 1, 2021
Has the Trumpist Republican Party become a Front?
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Radical Change?
Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Great Grandpa Truman C. Carpenter
Truman C. Carpenter
From my mom's compilation & Sarah Persons. |
Truman C. Carpenter, My Great Grandpa, was a big guy and an adventurous fellow. My cousin tells me a tale that he once met Jessie James while getting a hair cut. Evidently Jessie James came into the same Barber Shop. The story is that Truman commented that he was a mean fellow. Which makes sense. He was. That would have been in Kansas or Missouri near the eastern end of the Southern Pacific. It ran from Southern California to the Mississipi River, started right after the Civil War and didn't disappear until the 60's.
My Great Grandfather lived in El Paso, Texas, which is about the halfway mark between the two ends of the Southern Pacific, so it makes sense. He lived there from about 1905 til about 1910 when he moved back east. Long enough for his wife to have my Grandfather born in El Paso. And I thought he was born in St Johnsbury for so many years!
My Great Grandpa, took people on expeditions into the Southwest and Mexico. He took hunting expeditions down into Mexico exploring. The photo above is represented as being Hop Valley in the Sierra Madre (Oriental?) mountains. The picture apparently is of Santa Maria Canyon near Strawberry Canyon. Where-ever it was, his life intersected with the Mexican revolution.
The Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. Much of it was fought near the Border with the United States. The old President had made himself a President for Life and was ruling as a dictator, and in 1910 the democratic faction insisted on elections. That failed and so a civil war broke out. Pancho Villa was recruited to lead.
...in Potosí, Madero [had] called for revolutionary action against the Díaz regime on 20 November 1910, and declared himself provisional president of Mexico. In Chihuahua, Abraham González, reached out to Villa to join the movement. Villa joined and subsequently captured a large hacienda, a train of Federal Army soldiers, and the town of San Andrés. He went on to beat the Federal Army in Naica, Camargo, and Pilar de Conchos, but lost at Tecolote. Villa met in person with Madero in March 1911.
Shortly after they laid seige to Ciudad Juárez in April and May, and the city fell to the combined forces of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orosco and Madero. Subsequently Porofiro Diaz fell from Power and Madero became President. Villa and Orosco needed to pay their officers, and their plan was to give them seized properties. Madero rejected their demands, and so the revolution didn't stop. Juárez is just across the river from El Paso. It was no longer safe to travel into Mexico, so moving back to Vermont where Truman had family, made sense. And he did.
Truman C. Carpenter And the Mexican Revolution
Truman C. Carpenter left the railroad around 1910. He seems to have seen the risk associated with the Mexican revolution that was breaking out at the same time he left. I knew he was a railroadman. But he was more of a cowboy than I previously thought! I'll ad more as I find it.
For my post on Grandpa Truman E Carpenter: https://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/01/great-grandpa-truman-c-carpenter.html
Out in the Cold January 2021
Monday, January 25, 2021
The psychopaths Advantage
Too many laws, require proof that the person telling a lie or breaking a law, did so knowing it was a law, lie or illegal. The result is that this makes it hard to prosecute officials, news presenters, tv personalities, etc... or get compensated when they harm others. At one time they simply locked up the criminal insane, but nowadays it appears they just get valium. This is beyond absurd, bad law, it is deadly to our republic, its democratic features, comity, and to many of us survival. Some of this may be bad lawyering. But the results are dangerous. An example is that Tucker Carlson just won a legal case, in September,
- From September 2020, Business Insider:
- Fox News won a court case by 'persuasively' arguing that no 'reasonable viewer' takes Tucker Carlson seriously
- https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7216968/9-24-20-McDougal-v-Fox-Opinion.pdf
Except the issue is that many viewers are not reasonable viewers, because they watch and believe Tucker Carlson! This is not a legitimate legal defense! On the contrary, the fact that he is a deliberate liar and propagandist should be an aggravating factor in McDougal's lawsuit!
The judge ruled that:
“ Mr. Carlson’s invocation of “extortion” against Ms. McDougal is nonactionable hyperbole,... This “general tenor” of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not “stating actual facts” about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary.” Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20-21; Levinsky’s, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 127 F.3d 122, 128 (1st Cir. 1997)). Fox persuasively argues, see Def Br. at 13-15, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer “arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism” about the statements he makes.”
Except Tucker's audience sops up his lies as if they were truth, and people are engaging in violence and threats based on them. The law needs to be stricter here.
First drafted back in October