Who Was That Masked Man?

Well, it damn sure wasn't the Lone Ranger.

Just who are those ruffians in battle dress roaming Portland's streets? They wear no identifying insignia or badges and do not identify themselves. Their kind has been seen before, in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They are grim automatons following the direction of some unknown presence in the pursuit of some unknown goal, and their only duty is to follow orders.

What might that be? Humiliate the Democratic mayor and governor, perhaps? Well, of course, especially since the governor is a woman who had the effrontery to be born in a foreign country.

Embattled streets? In Portland, Oregon, of all places? It's a beautiful city: great zoo, wonderful parks, acres of roses everywhere, clean downtown, and a nifty light rail system connecting all of it. Vanilla Portland, whose population is 80+% white and the largest minority, at 8%, is Hispanic?¹

But I digress. Back to the original question. Who are these thugs in camouflage body armor? The official word is that they are operatives of the Department of Homeland Security, which could mean anything: footsoldiers from one of a half-dozen or so formerly independent agencies, mercenaries, trainees, off-duty security guards, government contractors--black ops at 97201?

We're told they are there to protect federal buildings and property. Protect from what? A raging horde of bicycle-riding, latte-sipping white pacifists wearing Birkenstocks, who have been goaded into action by a direct threat to their Constitutional rights. And don't forget they are protectively fronted by arm-linked human "walls" of veterans, moms, and dads. Ripe targets for our big, bad DHS.

Portland police claim to have found loaded automatic weapon magazines (but no guns) and possible (unused) Molotov cocktails in a park that has been the scene of a lot of protest action, but the cops are trying to look good under the eye of the fed bullyboys, and at this point I don't believe much of anything coming out of either group.

The faceless invaders claim to be using "nonlethal" means of crowd dispersal: rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas. Let's look at this target-friendly ordnance.

• Rubber bullets: An extensive study of the use of these projectiles concluded that they kill about 3% of their targets and cause serious permanent injury to about 15%.² Maybe they should be called "mostly nonlethal."Just collateral damage for the Trumpster, right? But 3% of a thousand is 30 human lives lost. Not so collateral to their families.

• Tear gas: Proscribed for use in warfare by the Geneva Protocol of 1926, along with all "asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids,"³ but not disallowed for riot control. Hm--so it can be used on civilians in street clothes, but not on armed belligerents, presumably with gas masks. Who would have thought the rules of war could be more humane than those of domestic policing?

• Flash-bangs: Not nonlethal, very dangerous, and frequently misused.⁴

Now, lest you think I'm biased, I'll direct you to a piece in support of those jackbooted, faceless troops. It's from the National Review, a rabid rag of the radical right. Beware: it might make you vomit. Go to footnote 5, below.

Sic semper tyrannis! Let the DHS goons get what's coming to them, rubber bullets, flash-bangs, gas and all.


--- Diogenes, 7/27/2020


¹ https://www.movingtoportland.net/portland-information/portland-demographics/
² Haar RJ, Iacopino V, Ranadive N, et al., "Death, injury and disability from kinetic impact projectiles in crowd-control settings: a systematic review." BMJ Open 2017;7:e018154. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-018154. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e018154
³ U. N. gas protocol: https://unoda-web.s3-accelerate.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/assets/WMD/Bio/pdf/Status_Protocol.pdf
⁴ Pro Publica: "Hotter than Lava." https://www.propublica.org/article/flashbangs
⁵ National Review: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-portland-dhs-operation-is-legal-and-proportionate/

I Shouldn't Say "I Told You So,"

But I did.

I'm not a prophet, but I watch and listen and pay attention, and if anyone had bet against me a couple of months ago when I said COVID-19 wasn't done with us, they would have lost.

Naturally that would have included the Fool-in-Chief, but he's wrong about everything anyway, so no surprise there.

If the Dolt-in-Chief had even a smidgen of historical knowledge, he would know that plagues have historically lasted for years, and some for centuries. It's been suggested that the last gasp of the Black Death of the 1340s came only in 1955. Pandemics rip through us in waves, sometimes just a ripple, sometimes a tsunami. The first wave had barely passed when Trump and the Booboisie started screaming for everything to open up.

So we opened up. Masks came off, social distancing was forgotten, bars and beaches and other places of frivolity enjoyed some very welcome profitable days, and Americans were finally able to get out and have a good time. July 4 was a blast.

To date, more than 15,000 Americans have paid for that party with their lives.

Following the initial assault by COVID-19, which picked off the low-hanging fruit, the curve of U. S. deaths fell into a slump, which a great many ignoramuses thought was the end. Nope. just warming up for round two.

There were only 273 COVID deaths on July 4 in America, and the dwindling number allowed medical professionals to feel very cautiously optimistic. One week later, on July 11, 729 people died; on July 18, 879; and yesterday, 981. In four weeks the daily death toll quadrupled, and it's still going up.

There is only one possible reason for this increase: lessening preventive measures, including isolation, and the insane rush to dive into traditional holiday activities.

The delusional Megalomaniac-in-Chief is willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to get to the status quo ante; or in words he might understand, "the way it's s'posed to be." Or in Trumpspeak, "The way I want it to be."

He cannot and will not accept that it's not going to happen. Ever. That sense of complete and utter change in the world is something he's not wired to understand.

He does know something is going on. In a recent argumentative interview with Chris Wallace, the Great Pretender disputed Wallace's enumeration of cases, then asked, "how many deaths?" Apparently dead Americans mean more to him than sick ones.

Here's your number, you unworthy lout: since July 4, some 15,000 American families have lost a child, a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, or some other kin because you are too blind and too stupid to even try to improve the situation.

Every one of those deaths lies at your feet, and every bereft family blames you.


--- Diogenes, 7/25/2020

Taking Action

My first political job was stuffing and licking envelopes for mass mailings supporting our candidate. I hated it. The glue tasted bad and I wasn't allowed to use a sponge for some obscure reason; the room was too hot and the chair too hard and the music too loud.

But it felt good. I was working to affect the electoral process, to make a difference in society, to help elect a candidate we believed would put America on a sensible course away from war.

When I went to the storefront headquarters to volunteer, I was actually hoping for something more active and interesting. I saw myself carrying a sign in a demonstration, or standing with a like-minded crowd shouting slogans.

When I finally did get to the streetfighting part I discovered I would much rather be back in that stuffy office licking envelopes.

That said, if I were reasonably close to any of the cities the Occupier-in-Chief has mentioned as targets* I would throw caution and sanity to the winds, grab my hardhat and gas mask and head once more unto the breach.

Or not. I detest tear gas, to say nothing of being manhandled by thugs in body armor.

The point is, we can all take some kind of action against the unpresident, his administration, and his campaign.

If you have the wherewithal to join a protest, by all means, go. Such actions are the most visible and compelling means we have to draw attention to the public's disgust with the Great Pretender and his actions. Just be careful.

Alternatively, be a documenter. Stay out of the fray but get into the area of the protest carrying your best weapon: your phone, or camera if you have one, and be sure to take a charger. If you have a clip or a holster find a way to tether it to your body. Stay close to the action but try not to get sucked in, and watch for any activity that looks even vaguely sinister. Make photos, videos, audio recordings, whatever you can manage, but never let go of your device. If you see thugs coming for you, turn slowly and walk away. Do not run.

There is absolutely no shame in not taking direct action. Believe me when I tell you it's not for everybody. Do what you can; no action is wasted.

If you're able to be out, volunteer at your local Democratic headquarters. If you're staying at home, write frequently to your Congressional representatives and your state legislators, regardless of party. Focus on one issue and be very clear about your concerns. Be sure to include Speaker Nancy Pelosi in your correspondence--she's a potent force.

If you feel comfortable with it, go public. Contribute to an anti-Trump Facebook site or start one of your own. Develop a blog. You never know who you might reach if you spread it widely enough. You might change one mind; you might change one vote; that is a victory.

Above all, never think that one person makes no difference. A nuclear chain reaction starts with the fission of a single atom.


--- Diogenes, 7/24/2020


* Albuquerque, Baltimore, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Oakland, and Philadelphia have been mentioned as targets. Chicago, Kansas City, and Portland are already under siege. All these cities are "run by liberal Democrats," according to Trump, which makes all this a political issue.    

Casus Belli

The Great Pretender needs a war.

He knows this because he had a dream.

In this dream a figure of indeterminate gender wearing a white robe showed him pictures of other white men he vaguely recognized. The figure said they were former U. S. presidents who Americans thought were great because they had won a war. Did he want to be thought great, too? The Dreamer-in-Chief had trouble believing his vision. Had there really been that many wars?

Undeterred by doubt, the apparition went on to say the Faker-in-Chief could have his very own war if he wanted it, but there would be no one left to applaud him if he chose that option.   

Alternatively, he could choose to refight a historical war, appointing his own generals, applying his own strategies, and shaping the outcome any way he wished. This option, however, came with a caveat: The chosen war could be fought only in his dream world. Nothing would change in the real world, either past or present.

Hearing that, the Sleeper-in-Chief nearly awoke. "Buh," he half muttered, "who'll say I' great?" His nocturnal interlocuter assured him that if he wanted all the demons of Hell to rise up and cheer him on, he could do so while dreaming. "Uh," he snortled, "Hi'ler 'n' Stal'n too?"

"Just so," affirmed the vision. "Your choice?"

The Civil War of course; the only all-American war.

• He wouldn't have to deal with foreigners;
• He would set things right with the CSA (they'd let him build his wall, by God!);
• He could own slaves who would always call him "Massa;"
• He could talk to everybody because both sides spoke English;
• He could be both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, conflating them into his heroic personality;
• He could rewrite history, claiming the Yankees invaded the South to steal all the slaves and relocate them to Canada;
• Better yet, he could claim there were never any slaves. The Yankees invaded because they were jealous of the Southern aristocratic lifestyle; 
• No. Negroes were happy servants, singing, dancing, and eating watermelon when off duty;
• He could finally have the America he so desperately wants: 100% Americans, 100% white, 100% native English speakers, 100% Protestant, 100% adoring him;
• He could be President for Life, like his mentor Vlad.

Donald Abraham John Jefferson Trump awoke refreshed and inspired. Picking up his private cell phone he made a few calls, then went to the sitting room where he relaxed, sometimes humming "Dixie" to himself.

After about an hour he was informed he had a delivery being sent up. He received it from the agent on duty, locked the door, and carried it into the bedroom. Changing into his best pajamas, he sat on the bed and opened the box from Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, pulling out a month's supply of his favorite sleep aid.

He set the box on the bedside table, swallowed three Lunesta tablets, lay back, carefully cradling his favorite stuffed animal with his left arm, and closed his eyes, smiling.


--- Diogenes, 7/23/2020

Your Comments Are Requested And Welcomed

Please let us all know, anonymously if you wish, how you think the plague on our nation (i.e. DJTrump) should be handled or removed.

The floor is open. Anyone may add a comment.

Thank you.


--- Diogenes, 7/21/2020

Invariant, Unteachable, Incapable

Preview:

In 1944 John R. Pierce wrote "Invariant," a science fiction short story about a man whose mind was incapable of change.

A scientist, one Dr. Homer Green, believed he had created a rejuvenation formula that could make people immortal. He tested it on himself and found that it worked. Wounds healed almost immediately and no disease could touch him.

But as Pierce notes, "There is only one catch. Even his brain tissue is invariant - exactly the way it was before he treated himself! He cannot get any more memories or otherwise adapt to environment, because his mind always repairs itself to the state just before the treatment!!"¹

So Dr. Green lives forever, but always in the same ever-repeating and never-remembered day. Groundhog Day forever.

Life imitates art:

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, after watching a Fox News interview in which the unpresident contradicted himself about mask use at least twice and cited outdated information: "He's unteachable, and I can't understand it. His failure to understand this simple public health measure, his reluctance to accept the advice of all his public health experts, makes me wonder whether he really is qualified . . . the fact that the president of the United States can't get this straight raises serious doubts about his competence now."²

Dr. Mary Trump, the Child-in-Chief's niece, and a clinical psychologist:

"Donald today is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning, or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses, or take in and synthesize information."³

Well--what else might one say? Here are two medical opinions, one from a psychologist who is a member of the Trump family. Both echo countless other observations and anecdotal evidence that the Great Pretender is delusional, incapable of governing, and a pawn of forces that are inimical to the United States.

I say again, he must be removed from office by any means necessary, before he plunges this nation into war, either civil or international.


--- Diogenes, 7/20/2020



¹ Astounding Science Fiction, April, 1944.
² https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/watch/hes-unteachable-doctor-blasts-trumps-latest-mask-remarks/vp-BB16UvCz
³ Trump, Mary L. Too Much and Never Enough, p. 197.

RIP John Lewis

Things could soon get interesting in the Peachtree State. Or maybe not.

Representative John Lewis, one of the lions of the Civil Rights movement, and a genuinely great American, has died.

With his death, Brian Kemp, the Trump suckup who is governor of Georgia, may find his 15 minutes of fame. It will be up to him to decide whether to fill Lewis' House seat.

It's a tricky situation. Kemp is Constitutionally bound to hold a special election for the seat, but the Constitution doesn't specify how soon the election is to be held after the seat becomes vacant. (Article I, §2,4)

Kemp could in theory table the special election and let the clock run out until the November general election. He could plead that it could take months to set up a special election, which among other things would require printing a great many absentee ballots due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Neither Trump nor Kemp was a fan of Lewis. He was Black, popular, and powerful, and to their alligator brains that was three strikes. It could be to the Republican advantage to leave the seat empty for a while.

But does Kemp want to leave the 5th District unrepresented for any significant length of time? It's a Black majority district, and such precincts have historically not been of interest to Southern governors. But . . .

The 5th is not just any district. Located in the north central part of the state, it includes the capital Atlanta and its suburbs, the headquarters of the CDC, the headquarters of several major corporations, and Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a major airline hub. Its population of some 760,000 are largely educated professional types who are unlikely to sit still and let the governor mute their voice in Congress.

It doesn't apply directly to the subject here, but this striking sentence is in Article V of the Constitution: "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." So why shouldn't what's good for the Senate not be good for the House? Sounds like a good question for the good folks in the 5th District to ask.

And there's always the old favorite: "No taxation without representation." Well, OK, there's no tax involved here. But no action that could affect the 5th should take place without representation. Keep that in mind, Sycophant Kemp.

RIP, John Lewis. Please assure Dr. King that we're still carrying on the best we can.


--- Diogenes, 7/18/2020


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Take your stinkin' paws off my rights, you damn dirty ape!

The Ape-in-Chief is trying to monkey with the Bill of Rights. We all have to act to stop him. He still has 27 weeks in which he can do tons of damage.

When James Madison wrote that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," he meant to ensure that news and information important to the public could reach the populace freely, untrammeled by political spin or falsehoods, and without government censorship.

For Madison, "press" meant newspapers. Today it means print, broadcast, and digital media, but the idea remains the same. We the public have the right to straight-up and factual news and information about facts that concern us, and the government has no right to prevent us from getting it.

COVID-19 is, or should be, a subject of interest to everyone who draws breath. Until Tuesday the best place to find detailed information about it was CDC.gov. That was the date (Bastille Day, ironically) when the Department of Health and Human Services, at the behest of the Gorilla-in-Chief, ordered information from the nation's hospitals to be sent to HHS (and some to the White House!) instead of CDC. The next day that information disappeared from the CDC website.

The initial announcement about this displacement of data said tellingly that the data would be in a database inaccessible to the public.

Did that last bit get your attention? The Executive Branch of the government was planning to sequester information about public health, keeping it from the very public who need to have it.

Then, surprise! Two days later the information is back at CDC.gov. There's a lot of speculation about what happened to it in the interim, ranging from the data being bugged so the administration can tweak it at will to HHS personnel realizing they couldn't deal with the data inflow, let alone analyze it.

Of course the data never actually went away. One portal to it was closed, but it's still out there on lots of news, public health, and university websites.  

So no harm, no foul, right? Wrong! The fact that the data never went away is irrelevant.

We've not returned to the status quo ante. We've seen an open attempt on the part of the administration to withhold important public health information from the American people. My personal feeling is that they failed because they're so tightly enclosed in the Trump bubble they didn't realize just how accessible the data is.

They will try again, and they will keep trying to deny crucial information to the American people. This administration is capable of acts we can't even imagine.

As election day comes closer and the unpresident becomes ever more desperate, he will become more dangerous. As I've said before, the people have to move to stop him. Our most direct route to accomplishing this is by keeping heavy pressure on our members of Congress to act in some meaningful way to contain DJTrump.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.¹


--- Diogenes, 7/17/2020  


¹ Wendell Phillips, American abolitionist, 1852.


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Excuses, excuses

Reasons not to wear a mask during the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. Trump says I don't have to.                  Trump lies. If he says you don't, it means you do.
2. It's uncomfortable.                                Tell me that when you're intubated so you can breathe.
3. My breath smells bad.                          Get a breath mint.
4. My emphysema makes it hard to breathe.     You're high risk. Go home.
5. The governor says I don't have to.       The governor is an idiot.
6. I can't drink with it on.                         Use a straw.
7. I don't like the way I look.                    Tell me that when you're lying in your casket.
8. None of my friends do.                          You know what your mother would say, don't you?
9. No one can make me.                           They can if you're in one of the states requiring it.*
10. My asthma makes it feel stuffy.            See answer #4.
11. I feel claustrophobic.                            Inhale deeply before putting it on; exhale slowly.
12. I'm healthy.                                            Look up the definition of "asymptomatic."
13. I can't smoke with it on.                       You can't smoke inside anyway, numbnuts.
14. I can't tie it behind my head.                 Get one that goes around your ears.
15. It hurts behind my ears.                         Give it time; you'll get calluses.
16. The pandemic is a hoax.                        Shall I call you an ambulance now?
17. I social distance; don't need one.           Get the hell away from me!
18. Sean Hannity says I don't need one.      See answer #5.
19. I cough and sneeze a lot from allergies.  All the better to be wearing one.
20. It's against my religion.                          I hope you're praying a lot.    

 ---Diogenes, 7/16/2020

* California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.

Life Matters, Part 3

We were once called the melting pot of nations for the millions of immigrants from myriad nations who came to the United States during the 19th century in search of a better life. Polish, Germans, Chinese, Italians, Dutch, Swedes, Russians, Jews, and a variety of Eastern Europeans landed in New York. After 1849 hundreds of thousands of Chinese came through San Francisco in search of gold and to work on the western railroads.

All were discriminated against and persecuted until they found niches in American society. All but one race ultimately assimilated. The Chinese were considered too alien. Their culture, dress, physical appearance, cuisine, religion, language, and several other factors worked against them. They were denied immigration for 61 years by a string of measures beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Members of one foreign ethnic group, however, had been here long before all others. The institution of slavery had been established in 1619 with the arrival of 20 African captives in Jamestown, Virginia. Of all the peoples who came to these shores, only Africans came involuntarily, only Africans were forced into slavery, and only Africans were bought and sold as chattel in marketplaces.

Black lives matter and Black deaths matter. Not because they are inherently more important than those of other races, but because they have been disregarded for so long. For more than two centuries millions of African men and women lived, worked, and died in appalling conditions, first in the American colonies and then in the American states. Few of their names are known.

Emancipation brought an end to enforced slavery, but the plight of Black people, particularly in the South, was little improved. They continued to be harassed, beaten, taunted, persecuted, murdered, raped and lynched well into the 20th century. Systemic victimization, frequently by police, continues today, due in no small part to the rabble-rousing rants of the Racist-in-Chief, DJTrump.

We must learn that if we are to have a truly just and equal society we have to acknowledge the pain, torment and misery our ancestors visited on generations of ancestors of our Black sisters and brothers.

Black lives do matter, We have to speak it.


--- Diogenes, 7/15/2020

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