Patrick Radden Keefe (2022) Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers Rebels and Crooks.

Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning author of Empire of Pain. Before I read his book I hadn’t heard of the billionaire Sackler family and how they created an opioid addiction factory (Purdue Pharmacy) that killed tens of thousands and made them obscenely wealthy. I had, however, heard of the moron’s moron and former President Donald J.Trump. I’m a Trump watcher. It baffles me that 74 million Americans voted for him in 2020. And it frightens me that he’s got a fifty-fifty chance of beating Joe Biden in the November election this year. Trump isn’t just a threat to American democracy but an existential threat to the world. He’s a human apocalypse waiting to happen.

I watched Robert Monroe’s documentary on ITV, Trump the Return, which confirms what we already know. Joe Biden is regarded as too old. The moron’s moron, however is timeless, playing the same old games and pedalling the same old lies.   https://www.itv.com/news/2024-01-16/itv-speaks-to-key-voters-across-midwest-and-hears-warning-from-ex-trump-official

His playbook comes from the four ds of Big Oil and Tobacoo played on a loop: i) discredit, ii) deny, iii) deflect, iv) delay to fight another day.

My gut reaction the Ku Klux Klan Acts of 1870 and 1871 is the one that will nail him.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/15/why-prosecutors-charging-trump-kkk-confederate-laws?ref=mc.news

Patrick Radden Keefe offers an account of Trump before he became Trump. The key to the lock when we look back on our assumptions that the moron’s moron isn’t evil, or in other words, when Donald was just Donald, a second-class grafter.

Winning an article written in 2019 presents as evidence how a former Glaswegian, British paratrooper, Mark Burnett, created the moron’s moron as future President. It’s 2002. Burnett, a marginal figure in Hollywood, hires Wollman Rink in Central Park. He was using it for the live broadcast of his franchise Survivor. The property was leased to Donald Trump. Anyone that knew Donald Trump at that time knew he would turn up to a stamp-licking competition if there were cameras. He sat in the front row with his then girlfriend, Melania Knauss.

Burnett later suggested he knew how to read a room. He knew how to read Trump. Listen to how he flatters him. He said, ‘I need to show respect to Mr Trump. Welcome, everybody to Wollman skating rink. The Trump Wollman skating rink is a fine facility built by Mr. Donald Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Because the Trump Wollman skating rink is the place we are tonight and we love being at the Trump Wollman skating rink. Mr.Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.’

No great surprise that shaking hands with Burnett, Trump called him ‘a genius’ for recognising his genius.

Trump was already the genius that has written Art of the Deal. Only he hadn’t. Tony Schwarz wrote the book, which he regretted. Not because it was a bad book but Trump claimed it as his own. He rather grandiosely condemned Trump ‘as the monster I helped create’.       

Schwartz was a bit player. Burnett tells a story of how he courted Trump by flattering him and telling the moron’s moron how he’d changed his life. Trump liked to tell the story of how he created the idea for The Apprentice. Burnett, unlike Schwartz, never contradicted the moron’s moron.

For each show they shot over 300 hours of footage, but used less than an hour. Much of it focussed on Trump. Burnett liked to say of reality television, ‘You don’t make anything up. But you accentuate things…’ Things like Trump claiming he’d created the show’s theme phrase, ‘You’re fired’.

Trump, despite being the focus of the show, came unprepared the supposed series of business challenges the competitors had to compete. The moron’s moron—as was show at his Presidential briefings—had little idea which competitors performed well or badly. Sometimes a competitor performed well. Only for Trump to fire him on a whim. Since he was never wrong, editors had to go through hundreds of hours of footage to find a few moments when the best candidate had not been at his or her best.

‘Reverse engineering’ wasn’t possible in the White House on in meetings with world leaders.

None of those who worked with him on The Apprentice voted for the moron’s moron in the 2016 election.

Braun, an editor on the show, suggested.

The Apprentice portrayed Trump not as a sleezy hustler who huddled with local mobsters, but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake. He had just gone through how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.’  

It seems incredible to believe the court jester, the spreader of hatred and lies, was the 45^th American President. Read the runes and weep. He might be the 47^th.

Notes.        

The relationship between Trump, Rupert Murdoch, and Fox News undeniably played a substantial role in shaping the political landscape of the 2016 election. While it provided the moron’s moron with a powerful platform and a direct line to a key demographic, its impact must be understood within the broader context of a changing media landscape and the complex factors that influenced voters during that transformative election year.

1. Polarization and Echo Chambers:

• Against: Critics argue that the Trump-Fox News alliance contributed to the polarisation of media and politics. The echo chamber effect limited exposure to diverse perspectives, reinforcing existing beliefs among Fox News viewers.

2. Blurring of Journalism and Advocacy:

• Against: Some view the close relationship between Trump, Murdoch, and Fox News as emblematic of a broader trend where journalism becomes intertwined with political advocacy. This blurring of lines raises concerns about media objectivity and bias which the moron’s moron weaponised as us and them.

The phrase “Make America Great Again” used by President Ronald Reagan (often abbreviated as MAGA) was popularised by Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. It became his campaign slogan and a central theme of his candidacy. While the exact origin of the phrase may not be directly attributed to Trump himself, he and his campaign team embraced and popularised it as a rallying cry for his supporters.

Key Points:

1. Usage by Trump:

• Trump first used the slogan during his campaign announcement speech on June 16, 2015. The phrase encapsulated his promise to address what he saw as challenges facing the United States and to restore what he perceived as the country’s former greatness.

• Rejoinders and Criticisms:

• “America Was Never Great”: A rejoinder to MAGA emerged with the phrase “America Was Never Great.” This counter-slogan was used by some individuals and groups critical of Trump’s campaign slogan. It aimed to highlight historical and ongoing issues such as systemic inequalities and injustices.
  • “Make America Hate Again”: Critics of Trump and his policies, particularly regarding immigration and racial issues, adapted the slogan to “Make America Hate Again.” This modification sought to emphasize concerns about divisive rhetoric and policies that some felt fueled hatred or discrimination.
  • “Make America Smart Again”: This rejoinder was used by those who opposed Trump’s policies, particularly on issues related to science, climate change, and environmental policies. It implied that Trump’s approach was not aligned with a vision of a scientifically informed America.

• Purpose of Rejoinders:

• The rejoinders aimed to critique and challenge the narrative put forth by Trump’s campaign slogan. They reflected different perspectives on the country’s history, current challenges, and the impact of Trump’s proposed policies.
  • These counter-slogans were often employed by individuals and groups advocating for social justice, equality, environmental responsibility, and a more inclusive vision of America.

•  

3. Criticism of Softball Interviews:

• Against: Trump’s frequent appearances on Fox News were not without controversy. Some critics argue that the network provided him with a platform for softball interviews, avoiding tough questioning and substantive policy discussions.

Arguments For the Influence:

1. Shaping the Conservative Narrative:

• For: Trump’s relationship with Fox News allowed him to shape the conservative narrative, framing issues and events in a way that resonated with a significant portion of the white electorate and make them feel under threat and unappreciated.

2. Mobilizing the Base:

• For: The supportive coverage on Fox News contributed to mobilising the conservative base. Trump’s messaging, amplified through the network, energised voters who felt represented in the media discourse.

Arguments Against the Influence:

1. Broader Media Landscape:

• Against: Critics argue that the influence of Fox News, while significant, is part of a larger media landscape. Other factors, including social media, traditional news outlets, and grassroots movements, also played crucial roles.

2. Economic Anxiety and Populism:

• Against: Some contend that Trump’s appeal went beyond media alliances. Economic anxiety, populism, and a sense of disenfranchisement were significant factors that contributed to his electoral success.

Allegations of foreign interference will forever mark the 2016 U.S. presidential election, particularly through social media platforms. Central to these allegations were claims of Russian “bot” factories orchestrating disinformation campaigns to influence American voters.

Links and Tactics:

The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, stood at the centre of accusations regarding social media interference. Operating “bot” factories, the IRA was accused of creating fake accounts, disseminating divisive content, and organising events on platforms like Facebook to sow discord among American voters. Pro-Trump social media posts flooded newsfeeds, exploiting existing political divisions and amplifying controversial issues.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Initial Denial and Subsequent Acknowledgment:

In the aftermath of the election, Mark Zuckerberg initially downplayed the impact of fake news on Facebook, dismissing the notion that it significantly influenced the outcome. However, as evidence mounted, Facebook’s stance evolved. In September 2017, the company disclosed that it had identified thousands of ads linked to Russian entities. Zuckerberg, along with Facebook, acknowledged the extent of the problem, recognising the role of Russian interference.

Supposed Measures Taken by Facebook:

Acknowledging the need for corrective action, Facebook implemented a series of measures to address the issue. Stricter ad policies, increased transparency regarding political ads, and cooperation with investigations became central to their strategy. Zuckerberg testified before Congress in 2018, outlining steps taken to enhance platform security and prevent foreign interference. Ongoing efforts included the removal of fake accounts and deceptive pages linked to foreign entities.

The allegations of Russian interference underscored the vulnerabilities of social media platforms in the face of disinformation campaigns. While Facebook and other tech companies took steps to fortify their defences, the incident prompted ongoing debates about the role of tech platforms in safeguarding the integrity of elections.

The saga of Russian interference in the 2016 election through social media remains a complex and contested chapter in recent political history. The retrospective actions taken by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook underscore the challenges faced by tech companies in balancing freedom of expression with the responsibility to prevent the manipulation of public discourse which might jar with making money. The ongoing debates surrounding social media regulation and foreign interference continue to shape discussions about the future of digital democracy.

Trump and Putin.

1. 2016 Election Interference:
   1. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, there were allegations of Russian interference in favour of Trump. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded Russia engaged in a campaign of disinformation and hacking to influence the election. Trump’s election was met with joyous scenes in the Russian White House.
2. Trump Tower Meeting:
   1. In 2016, there was a meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., other campaign officials, and a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The meeting raised questions about potential collusion, but Trump and his campaign maintained that nothing came of it.
3. Michael Flynn’s Contacts with Russian Ambassador:
   1. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first National Security Advisor, resigned in 2017 over misleading statements he made about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., during the transition period.
4. Special Counsel Investigation (Mueller Report):
   1. Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel appointed to investigate Russian interference, concluded his investigation in 2019. The Mueller Report did not establish that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia, but it did document Russian efforts to interfere in the election.
5. Media Coverage:
   1. The allegations and investigations received extensive media coverage. Some media outlets speculated about potential connections between Trump and Russia, while others emphasised the lack of direct evidence of collusion.
6. Trump’s Denials:
   1. Throughout his presidency, Trump consistently denied any collusion with Russia, often referring to the investigations as “witch hunts.” He maintained that there was no wrongdoing on his part and that the allegations were politically motivated.
7. Impeachment:
   1. Trump faced impeachment in 2019 over the Ukraine scandal, which was separate from the Russia-related allegations. The impeachment charges did not directly involve collusion with Russia.

Investigations and reports have contributed to ongoing debates about the extent of Russian interference and its impact on U.S. elections.

QAnon is a baseless and disproven far-right conspiracy theory that emerged in the United States in 2017. The central tenet of QAnon is the belief in a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and global elites who are plotting against then-President Donald Trump. The conspiracy theory gained traction through online forums and social media platforms.

Key Points about QAnon:

Anonymous Posts (“Q Drops”): The conspiracy theory originated on internet forums like 4chan and 8chan, where an anonymous user claiming to have insider knowledge, known as “Q,” made cryptic posts or “Q drops” that followers interpreted as predictions or clues that only they (the initiated) could understand.

Themes: QAnon incorporates various unfounded and debunked claims, including the existence of a deep state, global child trafficking rings, and secret efforts to undermine Trump’s presidency.

Supporters of QAnon regarded it as a patriotic movement aiming to expose corruption and protect children. Some believed in the alleged imminent “storm” when the cabal would be overthrown.

Critics: QAnon has been widely criticised and debunked by mainstream media, fact-checkers, and law enforcement. Critics argue that the conspiracy theory is baseless, lacks evidence, and has real-world consequences, including incidents of violence and criminal acts.

Proliferation: QAnon gained visibility and spread through various online platforms, including social media, YouTube, and fringe websites. Some political figures indirectly or directly amplified QAnon-related content, further fueling its dissemination.

Deplatforming: Social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have taken measures to combat the spread of QAnon-related content. QAnon has been linked to real-world incidents, including acts of violence and domestic terrorism.

Fringe Nature: QAnon is not based on credible evidence, and its claims have been debunked by experts and fact-checkers. It is widely considered a fringe conspiracy theory.

It’s crucial to note that QAnon (and the moron’s moron) lacks credibility, and its claims have been thoroughly discredited, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Ironically for some supporters, ‘fact checkers’ are inherently biased and makes it a more credible source, much like their leader’s legal woes. .  

Steve Pinker (2021) Rationality: What it Is, Why it Seems Scarce, Why it Matters

I fail the rationality test with unfailing regularity. Remember Spock (Leonard Nimoy) from Star Trek? He was always mucking up and being too logical. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was always cutting through the bullshit and getting to the heart of the matter. Intuitive knowledge trumped rationality every time. We like to think of ourselves as one or the other, but most people are bits and bobs. Easily taken.  When was America American? A nation based on hatred and hindrance and protection of the super-rich’s assets. Ask the American Indians, victims of genocide. Black Americans victims of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Ask the almost 50% of the population that lives in permanent poverty.

Remember the moron’s moron and 42^nd American President (Donald Trump)? The dim-witted, narcissistic, psychopathic sociopath is up for trial. But he still commands a respectable core vote of around 40% of the American public. He’s running for re-election.

‘Trump told around 30 000 lies.

He disdained public health measure.

He predicted in 2020 that Covid-19 would disappear like a miracle.

He endorsed malarial drugs, bleach injections and light probes.

He repeatedly claimed that Hilary Clinton was part of a Satan-worshiping cabal, part of a ‘deep state’ that ordered up children from a Pizzeria in Washington, had sex with them, milked their fear to make them all powerful and then killed them. Nobody knew about this apart from—just about everyone.

He claimed climate change was a Chinese hoax.

He refused to acknowledge defeat in the 2020 election. The moron’s moron’s followers stormed Congress. He waged a legal battle to overturn the result based on whimsy. Among others, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News is being sued for helping to spread lies about the electronic polling machines used to count votes.

Rationality matters because Boris Johnson followed the same tactics. Lied, lied and lied again. The former British Prime Minister relationship with the truth is Trump-like. Both demagogues claim to represent ‘the people’. Certainly not me or mine. Most people in Scotland, despite the Braveheart rhetoric—you will never take out freedom, sold it for a handful of pennies—but rejected Boris Johnston and Tory government’s and Thatcher’s doctrine ‘there’s no such thing as society’. I despise them and there mythology. To me that is a rational response. We live among the ruins. That’s why rationality matters. And it has never mattered so much. No individualism, no nation can defeat global warming. Only as a collective can we triumph. Steve Pinker believes mankind can triumph. I don’t. We’re too divided by irrationalities. I’ll be dead anyway. So it shouldn’t really matter to me. But if you’ve children, they’re completely fucked.  Rationally, we’ll only find out when it’s too late. And we’re already at too late.  

Notes.

P21 [informal fallacies]

1) The straw man.

The effigy of a real thing is easier to knock down than the real thing.

Examples: Noam Chomsky claims children are born talking.

Kahnerman and Tversky claim humans are imbeciles.

Or

Practiced by interviewers being aggressive: what-you-are-saying-is tactic [while saying something completely different]

Example: Dominance hierarchies are common in the animal kingdom even in creatures as simple as lobsters

So what you are saying is we should organize our societies along the line of lobsters?

2) Arguers can = stealthily replace an opponent’s proposition by one easier to attack>

They can (also) replace their own propositions by one easier to defend.

Example: SPECIAL PLEADING.

Example: ESP experiments failed because of the negative vibes of the sceptics.

Example: Democracies never start wars except for Ancient Greek, but it had slaves.

3) MOVE THE GOALPOSTS

{motte-and bailey fallacy} after the medieval castle with its cramped but impregnable tower into which you can retreat, when invaders attack the more desirable but less defensible courtyard.

EXAMPLE: No Scotsman put sugar in his porridge, but when presented with Angus, who puts sugar in his porridge claims Angus is not a true Scotsman.

EXAMPLE: No Trump supporter advocates violence.

4) BEGGING THE QUESTION or raising the question [cf replacing the question]

Informal fallacy [malapropisms] reserved for those that already know the answer

EXAMPLE: When did you stop beating your wife?

5) BURDEN OF PROOF

One can always maintain a belief, not matter what is being said, by saying (or stating) the burden of proof is on those who disagree.

EXAMPLES: Bertrand Russell responded to the fallacy when he was asked to explain why he was an atheist rather than an agnostic, since he could not prove that God did not exist.

He replied: Nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot in an elliptical orbit.

Sometimes both sides purse the fallacy, leading to the style of debate called BURDEN TENNIS.

[Adopting the high ground, the burden of proof is on you]

In reality, since we start out ignorant about everything the burden of prove is on anyone who wants to show anything.

6)L>QUOQUE> ‘you too’> what-aboutery

EXAMPLE: apologists for the Soviet Union, What about the way the US treats its Negroes?

Joke: a woman comes home to find her husband in bed with her best friend.

The startled man says: What are you doing home so early?

She replies: What are you doing in bed with my best friend?

He snaps: Don’t  change the subject.

7)ARGUMENTS FROM AUTHORITY

Deference to often religious groups.

EXAMPLES: It’s in the Bible: God said it.

EXAMPLES: Marx said it, [sorry I meant Mark] or Freud or Chomsky, a Nobel laureate

Scott Lilenfeld et al The Nobel Disease When Intelligence Fails to Protect against Irrationality.

Einstein was not the only brilliant physicist to have flaky ideas outside his area of expertise.

8) BANDWAGON FALLACY exploits the facts we are social, hierarchical primates.

EXAMPLE: Most people I know think astrology is scientific, so there must be something to it.

[You’re not going to win the lottery. Somebody’s got to]

9) ad hominem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

 “Personal attack” redirects here. For the Wikipedia policy, see Wikipedia:No personal attacks.

Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue. The most common form of this fallacy is “A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong”.

The valid types of ad hominem arguments are generally only encountered in specialized philosophical usage. These typically refer to the dialectical strategy of using the target’s own beliefs and arguments against them, while not agreeing with the validity of those beliefs and arguments. Ad hominem arguments were first studied in ancient Greece; John Locke revived the examination of ad hominem arguments in the 17th century. Many contemporary politicians routinely use ad hominem attacks, which can be encapsulated to a derogatory nickname for a political opponent.

talian polymath Galileo Galilei and British philosopher John Locke also examined the argument from commitment, a form of the ad hominem argument, meaning examining an argument on the basis of whether it stands true to the principles of the person carrying the argument. In the mid-19th century, the modern understanding of the term ad hominem started to take shape, with the broad definition given by English logician Richard Whately. According to Whately, ad hominem arguments were “addressed to the peculiar circumstances, character, avowed opinions, or past conduct of the individual”.[4]

Over time, the term acquired a different meaning; by the beginning of the 20th century, it was linked to a logical fallacy, in which a debater, instead of disproving an argument, attacked their opponent. This approach was also popularized in philosophical textbooks of the mid-20th century, and it was challenged by Australian philosopher Charles Leonard Hamblin in the second half of the 20th century. In a detailed work, he suggested that the inclusion of a statement against a person in an argument does not necessarily make it a fallacious argument since that particular phrase is not a premise that leads to a conclusion. While Hablin’s criticism was not widely accepted, Canadian philosopher Douglas N. Walton examined the fallaciousness of the ad hominem argument even further.[5] Nowadays, except within specialized philosophical usages, the usage of the term ad hominem signifies a straight attack at the character and ethos of a person, in an attempt to refute their argument.[6]

[a person cannot be divorced from what he says what he means or means what he says unless he is Donald J Trump]

Rebut an idea by insulting a person’s character or motives, talents, values, politics.

Smart people and those that spread fake news.

9) GUILT BY ASSOCIATION.

The link between smoking and cancer rejected because it was Nazi science.

Global warming is a hoax because those against it used cars and airplanes and they heat their houses using fossil fuels (I forgot how to spell fuel there).

10) APPEAL TO EMOTION. (affective fallacy)

EXAMPLE: How can anyone look at that photo of grieving parents and say that war deaths have declined.

EXAMPLE: Look how many boats are arriving on our beaches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Gary Lineker’s Tweet and Match of the Day.

Tweet in response to the Tory government’s stop the boats propaganda:  “immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”.

The BBC back down, eventually. I’m a traditionalist, an old football-watching generation. We read the newspaper from the back pages to the front. The most important thing is my team, Celtic’s results. A Scottish team, built by Brother Walfrid on the backs of the Irish Scottish who flocked to these shores at a rate of over 20 000 refugees a week, escaping from the Irish potato famine (1845-1852). We came here to work and make a new life. Our football team was and is a part of our life and culture.  

Australian, Rupert Murdoch built his media empire around men and women like us, while promulgating right-wing rhetoric, such as Brexit and a disbelief in global warming. His media empire was instrumental in getting the moron’s moron Trump elected in 2016. Without Murdoch’s support and Fox News, there would have been no ‘Great Replacement’ and other neo-Nazi conspiracy theories gaining such traction and a worldwide audience. Former chief Trumpet strategist, Steve Bannon, had a term for propaganda called “flood the zone with shit”.

Gary Lineker’s tweet comparing the government’s policy on immigration to Nazi policy ‘flooded the zone with shit’, but it was the wrong kind of shit for media-friendly billionaires. We’re following the backlash. Rishi Sunak’s meeting with the French President Macron and the British Prime Minister’s agreement to pay the French billions of pounds sterling in an attempt to stop small boats crossing the Channel hardly got a look in.

 I no longer need to be drunk to fall asleep watching Match of the Day. I’ve no great interest in English teams. I usually turn the sound down while the until now affable Gary Lineker runs through the matches with pundits such as Alan Shearer and Ian Wright, who also played in the number 9 shirt for England. Saturday night’s matches were a truncated 20 minutes rather than the usual hour. That suits me. But the larger message of solidarity from striking pundits is something I support. But hey, I’m Scottish and come from the Red Clydeside. No fake news here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

 1) Personal attacks and moving the goalposts.

Setting up the straw man—knocking him down. Highly paid lawyers routinely use it in rape cases. Victims must justify themselves. The burden of proof falls on those raped and abused. Philosopher, Bertrand Russell when asked why he classified himself atheist rather than agnostic, replied, ‘Nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot in an elliptical orbit’.

Classic teapot spotting. The criminalisation of all refugees creates a Catch 22 in which there are no legal or specified conditions in which they can become legal immigrants without already being British and having citizenship. The burden of proof falls on them to convince the authorities what that they are not, rather than what they are, while also blocking access to legal representation.

Stigma heightens risk. Well-documented cases of gang members turning up outside children’s homes and taking them away is made easy by knowing the taken will not and cannot trust authorities to help them. They will not report, rape, violence, theft or indenture also called modern slavery, because they are just refugees. Not real people.

Example of teapot spotting. Lineker is a millionaire and champagne socialist. Moving the goalposts from Britain’s policy towards refugees to his lifestyle.

Example of non-elliptical orbit.  BBC chairman and director general, Richard Sharp failing to disclose his £800 000 loan to the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Sharp’s donations of millions to the Conservative Party put him up there with former Russian oligarchs. Jobs for the boys.

2) Begging the question.

Lord Sugar’s, The Apprentice on BBC. His image of Jeremy Corbyn made to look like a poor man’s Hitler wasn’t begging the question as much as offering the answer to a question no one had asked. Crude propaganda of the Farage, Fox and GB News variety.  

3) Arguments from a greater authority.

It’s in the Bible. I went to Eton and /or Oxbridge. Trump said it. A toxic belief is rich people are better with money because they’re moneyed. Tautologies create feedback-loops in which those in authority cite those in authority. Trump’s claim he unclassified classified documents found in his possession by thinking about them, was right up there with his directive to inject disinfectant to treat Covid. Being rich gives you superpowers.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/apr/24/context-what-donald-trump-said-about-disinfectant-/

 4) Bandwagon paradox, we are the people.

If everyone is on the same bandwagon as the BBC, why is Lineker jumping off, and mouthing off? He doesn’t know where his bread’s buttered (being one of the people assumes a certain clichéd tone). Because he’s not one of the people. He’s not properly English like Sunak, or Home Secretaries Braverman or Patel. All of whom come from ‘shitty countries’ if we subscribe to the Trump doctrine. The moron’s moron’s father emigrated from Germany. And, unfortunately, his mum was born in a small Scottish island. Certainly, a younger Trump showed his racial precocity and refused to obey United States Federal law and rent apartments to blacks. According to Jim Crow laws adapted by the Nazi Party to discriminate against Jews, and other groups, who weren’t properly German, Lineker is English, but the wrong kind of English because he’s gone off script and therefore Communist. All would be interned in a concentration camp with Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists and others deemed life unworthy of life, based on a eugenic world view. Much like refugees washing up on our beaches and refused asylum.

5) Emotion Trumps facts.

Look how many boats are arriving on our beaches. Lineker is propagating fake news that Britain is near the bottom of the European and World league when asked to help refugees. According to the United Nations, in the summer months of 2022, around 103 million people were forcibly displaced. Nearly 70% remained in countries around war zones or countries they have been displaced from. Around 13 million Ukrainians entered Europe following the invasion of Russia in 2021. Britain offered asylum to 15 700 people in the summer of 2022 (or less than Glasgow offered in a typical week in the nineteenth century). Most asylum seekers meet the criteria to be offered asylum. The Nigel Farage Tory trick is to push them back and into oceans and seas if need be. Thus the £500 million bribe payed to Macron and the French police to detain asylum seekers, following hundreds of million paid in other bribes in previous years. Add to this, the morally reprehensible actions for a so-called Christian nation. The legally questionable practicalities of ignoring the 1949 Geneva Convention set up in the aftermath of the Holocaust. And a system of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, which grabs headlines, but costs more than processing refugees here. That great patriotic war cry of the right-wing, it’s uneconomic to the extreme (special pleading).    

6) Guilt by association and special circumstances.

Remember serial liar Boris Johnson’s pledge written-large on a bus? When we leave the EU the £350 million weekly saving would be spent on the NHS. According to BBC reports taken from the Office of Budget Responsibility leaving the EU, reduces the UK exports and imports by about 15% in the longer term and reduces productivity by around 4%. Britain imported more than it exported pre-Brexit. We see that in food rises. The selling off of companies such as BP in the mid-eighties has led to bumper profits and the highest energy prices in Europe. Lose-lose for Britain’s poorest. We also know the NHS is being sold off piecemeal. How many whistle-blowers from inside the NHS and BBC were sacked for making such an allegation? Google it, you’ll find a long list that stretches back to 13 years of Tory misrule. Britain is a small island with no particular market leverage other than the money market and tax avoidance. You need economic leverage to create the conditions for special circumstances. Think America. Think China. Britain and Boris? What Great Britain has become great at is blaming these economic disasters on migrants. On refugees. Those least able to respond. Gary Lineker has called the right-wing cabal out. The proponents of free-speech call for it to be curtailed. Right on form. Free speech isn’t for all Gary, only for the selected few. I thought a pundit would know that. The BBC suspends him—right on cue. Who runs the BBC? We’re back to conspiracy theories. Back to flooding the zone with shit. Which side are you on?   

Ronan Farrow (2019) Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeToo_movement

I know a girl, a little girl, I think of her in that way because of her size. She’s tiny. She got raped. I know the rapist too.  I also know his mum. She contacted me and asked me to stop calling him a rapist. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she said. ‘She panicked.’ The irony here is her daughter must have panicked too. Because she’d gone to the police alleging an acquaintance had raped her a few years ago. The rapist messaged me telling me he’d call the police for slandering him.  You know what happened next. What usually happens next? Nothing.

Ronan Farrow grew up with a rapist. His stepfather was film director Woody Allen. He married a stepsister he was parenting, Soon-Yi. Dylan, his sister, said that Woody Allen had digitally penetrated her vagina when she was seven-years-old. That’s around the age Michael Jackson preferred young boys to be when he had sex with them. Hearsay, of course, they would never have done those kinds of things.

Then there’s Trump and stories about sexual assault and rape. Almost as many stories about Trump as there were about Harvey Weinstein. Many of us have probably heard of him being caught in a sting filmed with Russian prostitutes when visiting Moscow, and asking them to pee on the bed. Putin was meant to have found that quite funny. But the Russian President did admit that Russian women were the most beautiful in the world. Trump couldn’t help himself, allegedly.

He was of course, a friend, a very, very, good friend with Jeffrey Epstein. They shared ‘Katie Johnston,’ also known as ‘Jane Doe’. That’s what the lawsuit against Trump stated in 1994. The usual kind of story of a thirteen-year-old girl in New York thinking she can become a professional model and forced to perform oral sex on Epstein and Trump. The finale was ‘a savage sexual attack by Trump’. It didn’t happen, of course, because the girl was clearly underage. Fake news of the kind Prince Andrew never committed.

Bill Cosby, of course, was found guilty of rape on re-trial. He claimed he didn’t drug his victims. Weinstein claimed he didn’t drug his victims either. Therefore it couldn’t have been rape. It certainly wouldn’t have been if he got elected President of the United States.

Farrow’s story is one we’ll be broadly familiar with. But the detail is eye-catching, because it’s all laid out. How the rape victim becomes a target to Catch and Kill.

That’s military jargon. Farrow begins his account with a meeting between two immigrants in a Brooklyn café in 2016. The narrator wasn’t there, but he writes the account as if he was. Roman Kyaylin was from the former Soviet Union. Igor Ostrovskiy was from Ukraine, which was also part of the former Soviet Union. They were for hire in the growing intelligence sector in the United States. Their target was spying on Ronan Farrow.

They were subcontractors, above them was Black Cube, an Israeli-based spy network, with former Presidents and Mossad directors selling their services to those that could pay. Weinstein made initial payments of $600 000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)#Background

Pegasus software was sold to dictators all over the world to track dissidents in their midst. It could track them and listen to their conversations. It could also activate the camera-phone. Here it was used to track a different kind of dissident. Farrow wasn’t the first reported to pick up on Weinstein (and Trump’s) story of rape and sexual assault.

Delay, doubt and deny. Picking holes in victim’s accounts. Terrifying them and forcing them into submission. The grunt work was done as low-grade shadowing. Threats came from on high and in torturous legal documents that billed their paymasters and sought to close victims’ mouths.

Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, for example, created a number of fictitious shell companies to pay Stormy Daniels $130 000 to shut up about her relationship with Trump. Weinstein employed a carousel of lawyers and faces that used the same tactics and playlists.

Both men had the backing of Dylan Howard at The National Enquirer. Like the News of the World in Britain, prior to the phone-hacking scandal, it sold tabloid scandal, but to Americans. Celebrities were fair game. Sometimes the only game. They put Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, in the frame.Urged him to cut a deal, and they wouldn’t publish pictures of him with his mistress. Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Mark Wahlberg, and an endless list of stars and politicians, Bezos declined and preferred to be outed rather than ‘blackmailed’ and beholden.

Trump, of course, cut a deal. Dylan Howard and Michael Cohen worked together to buy the rights to the story of disgruntled women that claimed to be sexually assaulted or raped by the former President, or even a former housekeeper that was said to have a son to the moron’s moron. Then nothing happened. Apart from the moron’s moron getting elected American President in 2016, which was worse, much worse

Trump’s and Weinstein’s had paid for supposed slut shaming and shutting women’s mouths. There was a certain irony that Murdoch’s Fox News anchor, Tucker Carlson, used a picture of Farrow’s boss, Noah Oppenheim, as a prompt:

‘Let’s be clear, NBC is lying. Many powerful people knew what Harvey Weinstein was doing and not only ignored his crimes, but actively took his side against many of his victims.  It’s a long list, but at the very top of the list is NBC News.’

The sins of omission are almost as long as the sins of commission. Ronan Farrow has brought into the light the crimes of a deluded Weinstein, who still proclaims his innocence from a prison cell. We wait for the moron’s moron to join him. My guess is he’ll be dead before then. His crimes against women in particular and humanity, in general, are still to be accounted for. No doubt someone like Ronan Farrow is working on that book now.     

Bombshell, Film Four at 9pm, written by Charles Randolph and directed by Jay Roach.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/bombshell

A topical film in the week the moron’s moron and 45^th American President mistakes the woman he’s accused of raping as being his ex-wife. And you can’t rape your wife, right?  Here we are in the sleaze pit of Fox News. Donald Trump has put himself forward as a candidate for the Presidency. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) has primed herself to ask Trump some critical questions about his attitude towards women in the 2016 Republican debate. This was before, of course, he was reported to have admitted he liked to grab a woman by the pussy. What, of course, he meant, was poor women. Poor white women. Who can forget the moron’s moron gushing all over his daughter and admitting that he might have dated her? Kelly nails Trump for his misogynist attitude. But this is Fox News. White is right. Woke is wrong. And Trump is the coming Messiah. Kelly is good for their ratings. But she’s suddenly on the wrong side of the right.   

She asks her boss, Roger Ailes’s (John Lithgow) advice. Aile’s boast is he is Fox News. His news channel made $1.3 billion profit. That’s the kind of leverage that allows him to joke with his staffers that James Murdoch has the kind of mouth that sucks cock. Rupert Murdoch owns Fox, but Ailes is king. Unlike the moron’s moron he doesn’t grab his subjects by the pussy, he invites them into his office. Reminds them who they work for. Asks them to show a bit of loyalty, show more leg, a bit of ass and pussy and suck his cock. That way they might get that promotion they’d hoped for. That way they might not get sacked. Droit du seigneur. And in Fox if you’re not a fox, you don’t get onscreen. You don’t get employed. Ailes makes sure of that. Any complaints go straight to the top.

Megyn Kelly does the right thing and the wrong thing. She bends the knee for the moron’s moron. Plays the game. She needs to keep her job. She’s got children to support.

Gretchen Carlson, (Nicole Kidman)  Fox and Friends, is the eye-candy blonde of yesteryear. A former Miss America. Her looks fading. Her appeal fading. She’s demoted. It’s not called that, of course. Everything she does is wrong. She didn’t question the right of every American from cradle to grave to own and shoot a firearm, but wondered if each citizen needed their very own machine-gun. In a Fox Poll, 80% voted they did. She was out, but she was building a case against Roger Ailes. Her lawyers advised her not to sue Fox as she’d lose, but to bring a case against Ailes, which she’d probably also lose. We know she didn’t. She won $20 million in damages and a public apology from Fox. But that’s jumping ahead.  

Megyn Kelly is treading water. Gretchen Carlson is out. Another beautiful blonde is climbing the corporate ladder to Aile’s private office. Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) is the next big thing or so she hopes. On the first day on The O’Reily Factor she mucks up.  A staffer, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon) gives her some advice about the permanent outrage factor merged with the cynicism of an Irish beat cop in a brothel. She does more than that. She sleeps with her. Most shocking of all, she admits that she’s a Hilary Clinton fan. But when Kayla wants to ask her advice after she’d been invited into the inner sanctum of Alie’s office, Carr holds her hands up and tells her she doesn’t want to know any details. She needs to keep her job.

We know how this ends. It’ll be interesting to see how the moron’s moron’s rape charges end. In 2016, like Roger Ailes, Trump was untouchable. Can he be President again? No. Will he go to jail? Probably not. Murdoch and Fox will reluctantly fall into line. Profits before personalities. But Facebook gave him leverage. No Meta. No Russian bots. No Russian cash. No Russian rejoicing in the Russian White House when he was elected.  Heart attack. For a man with no heart that should be something. No more Bombshells with the moron’s moron. We already know everything about him. Serial loser.   

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/20/trump-and-lawyer-ordered-to-pay-1m-for-bringing-frivolous-lawsuit-against-hillary-clinton

Liz Truss is a belter.

The formless nought. That was my thinking when I heard Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng mentioning ‘the people,’ ‘the people’ he talked to, ‘the people’ he listened to, ‘the people’—

Not my people. Not me.

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, friend of Queen Victoria,  leader of the Conservative Party and twice Prime Minister but also a writer. Sybil (1845), for example, brought the two nations argument into dining rooms. The working class, of course, did not need to read about it in novels they couldn’t afford to buy, we lived it.

‘Two nations: between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.

You speak of… the rich and the poor.’

 PM Liz Truss and her chancellor no longer are going to implement a 45p tax rate for top earners, equivalent to Thatcher’s hated poll tax, but worse, because that possibility remains.

Liz Truss puts her faith in trickle-down economics. Also called supply-side economics, or monetarism as opposed to Keynesism. Thatcherism. Reaganomics. Trumpism. Lowering taxes and cutting regulation will promote economic growth.  A coded form of letting the rich grow rich. 

Margaret Thatcher, Conservative Party leader but not yet Prime Minister in a speech given in early1975, to The Institute of Socioeconomic studies in New York, outlined her philosophy in her ‘Let the Poppies Grow Tall speech’. ‘I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so’.

Greed is good. Money trickles down the economy and everyone wins. But some more than others. There’s not much trickle down from King Charles III’s conservatively valued £10 billion of art work. But he gets to put his mugshot on our notes and coins. Its value goes on rising as the economy goes into triple-dip recession. He’s looking down on us. Sterling tanks, allied to the economic folly of Brexit which knocks around five-percent off Gross Domestic Product. The price of money goes up. Mortgages go up, the value of our homes fall, for the first time since the financial crisis, but not too far. There’s a safety net for investment. Demand for housing outstrips supply. The oldest, most costly and least energy-efficient housing in Europe (50% built before 1965, most of it council stock, 20% built before the end of the first world war, housing for heroes). Price, in theory, will find a new equilibrium under Alfred Marshall’s original supply and demand diagram. The free market will have done its job of allocating scarce resources.

The Tory government refused to let the Office for Budget Responsibility audit these tax cuts. But According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, only taxpayers whose earnings are £155 000 or more would have paid less tax in the government’s mini-budget. Millionaires would, nominally, become £40 000 per annum better off. Spending and welfare payments to be cut, and not to rise with inflation, which is another way of penalising the poor.  Austerity the answer for one of the two nations. Withdrawing free child care for three-to-four-year-olds marked down as a saving. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, 800 000 children living in England are missing out on free-school meals and going hungry.  Ten-to-fifteen percent, the amount house prices are likely to fall next year according to analysts. Eight million households struggling to pay telecom bills, according to Offcom, a record.

Fredrich Heyek (1944) The Road to Serfdom argument that a central bureaucracy will lead to militarism and fascism. Council houses equals fascism. British Rail equals fascism. Public control of water companies equals fascism. Health Care and the NHS equals fascism.

Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, the class enemy of Thatcher’s government. 85 000 coal miners and then there were none.  His mantra that not a seam of coal would be left in the ground has much the same ring as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Right Honourable Jacob Rees-Moggs’s claim that no untapped gas should be left in the North Sea. No great surprise that deniers of manmade climate change and deregulation have the same office and same ideology.

BP, which used to be owned by the taxpayer, who like other energy companies have had a good war in Ukraine, and enjoyed massive windfall profits with sky-high oil prices, chief executive, Bernard Looney was paid £4.46 million in 2021. Like his colleagues in Shell and British Centrica, top ups range from around £75 000 to just over £550 000. More is on the way for less.

The Rand Corporation in the United States shows decades of tax cut and deregulation of labour markets have taken around $50 trillion in wage growth from the bottom 90% of earners and given it to the top 1%.

We talk about subsidising Putin’s war by buying Russia’s oil and gas. We are familiar with sanctions against Russian oligarchs who have supported the Conservative Party. But we remain wilfully blind to who helped the moron’s moron get Trump elected in the United States in 2016, supported Nigel Farage and engineered Brexit. We’re talking Moscow.

  But as James Meek argues in Private Island, the free marketeers in selling off public assets at knockdown prices effectively subsidised other nation’s public sector, privatised and taken back into state control. The French state energy company EDF is a good example. The company we hoped would build new reactors for us with Chinese partners. Our government ditched the Chinese for political reasons. EDF ditched our government for financial reasons. There wasn’t enough cash in it for their private monopoly. Win-win for them.

Meek tells the reader what we already know about privatisation.

‘The Spanish economist Germa Bel traces the origins of the word to the German Reprivatiserung, first used in English in 1936 by the Berlin correspondent of The Economist, writing about the Nazi economic policy in 1943.

‘The Nazi Party facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires through “privatisation” and other measures thereby intensifying centralisation of economic affairs in an increasingly narrow group.’

Ironically, Karl Marx’s dictum that all value comes from the surplus value of labour shows best how deregulation worked in concentration camps that benefited the national socialist elite and their eugenic philosophy. Heinrich Himmler, a leading architect of the holocaust, had a sign over the entry to Auschwitz: ‘Work makes you free’. He benefited from the unit cost of labour. Worker’s wages were driven down. Uniforms, housing, and food were provided by the SS. They acted as a modern employment agency where workers were replaceable parts. The commodity price of labour fell to the bare bones with sick days limited and near to zero. A right-wing paradise and the trains ran on time. Even Amazon or Uber would find it difficult to beat such benefits.

Surplus value. The gap between the price the worker can sell his or her labour for and the price of the commodity on the free market widens. Win-win for efficiency and the capitalist mode of production. The hidden cost of labour is taken out of the equation. Low cost labour labelled workshy or lazy by the right-wing media or lacking the prerequisite skills, until we’re told to clap them as they worked throughout the pandemic. Now those same workers are labelled greedy and unreasonable for not agreeing to inflationary pay cuts.     

 Thatcher did not have a patent on privatisation.  The Common Lands used for the good of communities was made uncommon. Those that owned the land owned the people on the land.

Unchained Britannica, the cabal of free marketeers who seized power committed themselves to the same path as Cameron and Osborne’s austerity budgets or Johnson’s levelling-up agenda. Taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich (the reverse-Robin Hood, I’ve been saying that for ten years or more). But they talked about it in the wrong language. They scared Tory voters. And they scared the markets they claimed to understand better than anyone else. George Soros bought sterling and sold sterling. Black Wednesday, 16^th September 1992, wasn’t black for him. He made billions of dollars. Sterling’s weakness  was regarded as a snapshot of the economy by trading markets. Hedge funds are similarly piling into the pound, borrowing to bet it will fall to parity with the dollar. Money for nothing. Who works for it?

Chrystia Freeland (2013) in the introduction to Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich noted the super-rich, or the one-percent, didn’t like being called rich. They prefer the term affluent. Winners and losers. We’re all in it together rhetoric of David Cameron. Bumps in the economy ahead. A 2011 experiment conducted by Michael Norton of Harvard Business School with behavioural economist Dan Early, Duke University showed people the wealth distribution of the United States (top 20% own 84% of wealth) and compared it to Sweden’s (top 20% own 36% of wealth), and asked them where they would like to live.

The predictable answer is Sweden wins, even as it is becoming more right-wing, insular and moving towards the American model. Ironically, the Swedish model of wealth distribution was similar to the American model and indeed the British model of the 1950s.

What happened?

‘The skew towards the very top (accelerated after the moron’s moron, Trump took office in 2016) is so pronounced that you cannot understand economic growth figures without taking it into account.’

Trussonomics and the Tory Party, and the magic money tree, follow this model of deception based on nominal economic growth. After the 2008, $700 billion banking bailout in which unregulated (which they termed self-regulation) money men were given public money, which was mirrored in Britain and around the world at no cost to the rich. Boom and bust for some. Greed is indeed good. All the gains, none of the losses. America’s economic recovery in 2009-10 of 2.3% of GDP could be considered impressive out with China and Asian economies.

Economist Emmanuel Saez had a closer look at these growth figures. ‘99% of American’s incomes increased by 0.2%. Incomes for the top 1% rose by 11.6%.’

Tweets, President Joe Biden: ‘I am sick and tired of trickle-down economics. It has never worked. We’re building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out.’

Thomas Piketty (2014) The New York Times Bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century was based on fifteen years of research. He acknowledges the empirical data provided by Simon Kutznet and compared him to Karl Marx. Kutznet’s theory could be summarised in a single sentence spouted by President Reagan, ad-libbed by numerous politicians, the latest being Prime Minister Liz Truss.

‘Growth is a rising tide that lifts all ships.’

Kutznev, like Piketty, was measuring income distribution. Who gets what, without providing the why as Marx did.

‘He (Kutznev) noted a sharp reduction in income inequality in the United States between 1913 and 1948.’

America was becoming a more equal society. Income equality would follow the path of the Kutznet Bell Curve. Inequality was shrinking as Americans and the world became more middle-class.

Freeland compares Alexis de Tocqueville’s prediction to Kutznet’s, which sounds very like a justification for the modernity of colonialism and the white man’s burden. He was writing in the early years of the industrial revolution, when the wealth and status of landowners was being undermined by industrialists who poured labour into the coal mines, shipyards and sugar plantations (that’s not to claim that many industrialists weren’t also aristocratic, the two aren’t mutually exclusive) and took out vast sums of money or capital.

‘If one looks closely at the world since the beginning of society, it is easy to see that equality is only prevalent in the historical poles of civilisation. Savages are equal because they are equally weak and ignorant. Very civilised men can all become equal because they all have at their disposal similar mean of attaining comfort and happiness. Between these two extremes is found inequality of condition, wealth, knowledge—the power of the few, the poverty, ignorance and weakness of the rest.’

Piketty worked with other economists to analyse, like Kutznet, wealth distribution and inequality in around twenty nations using historical and contemporary data such as income tax returns. His findings are clear. Hayek believed we were on the The Road to Serfdom. Much the same road as Marx envisaged in his theory of infinite accumulation. Wealth increasingly flows from the poor the rich, who use their resources to deregulate and create an environment in which inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient, like global warming, reaches increasingly new highs, which become the new norms to further pauperise society and call for more tax cuts for ‘the people’. We lost the propaganda war. Fox News is no news. Plutocrats might not like to be called rich or super-rich. No bell-shaped Kutznet curve, but the hockey stick of man-made global warming shooting up year on year, running in tandem with the wealth of the super-rich and growing inequality. In our new gilded age, the must have is a bolt-hole away from common humanity and the coming apocalypse. Liz Truss could play her part as being the useful idiot that builds a fence to keep out the poor. Inside the gilded escape pod, the problem of labour returns in a familiar form. How do we keep the servants servile? How do we keep labour labouring? Discuss, Liz Truss.         

How the world laughed when the moron’s morons’ foot-soldiers stormed the Congress buildings.

 Captain America.

But the price of freedom is high, it always has been. And it’s one I’m willing to pay. And if I’m the only one, so be it. But I’m willing to bet I’m not.

I was scared the moron’s moron would, inadvertently, take us into the Third World War (delayed). I’ve got a roof over my head, enough to eat, and quite like being alive. As Malcolm X said before he was murdered ‘the chickens have come home to roost’.

The 45^th American President, the pedlar of hate and conspiracy theories—who got into the highest office in the land, with Fox News help, a Facebook disinformation campaign, and the Russian President Putin providing logistical support—under the pretext of a taking back control, incites riot and unlawful assembly. A mob army to dispute an election he lost, we’re back at Charlottesville here, with ‘those very good people’ that are gun-toting, flag-waving white and right.

Not since 1812, we’ve been told has this happened. General MacArthur brutally dealt with a citizen army, many of them veterans of the first world war, that had come to Washington and demanded government help during the hungry thirties. It will be interesting to see what happens to those moron moron’s supporters, who, for examples, filmed themselves sitting in Presiding Officer’s chair. That’s how dumb they are.

They believe that the purity of their brand of patriotism will protect them from the law. Without the moron’s moron in office how can there be any law? Just or otherwise?

The bankrupt 45^th American President, who when called to fight for his country in Vietnam, but said he’d a sore foot, ends in farce. When it comes to taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, I’m a revolutionary. This was no storming of the Congress by Captain America surrogates, but was dis-United America showing its face for the television and the mass media. Andy Warhol’s everyone requiring their fifteen minutes of fame in La-La land. Poetic justice as the moron’s moron bows out.   

Greg Palast, How to Steal the Presidency and Get Away with It (scorecard) 2000-1

Al Gore, of course, won the 2000-1 election, but an unfamiliar word entered the lexicon – chad. An appeal to the Supreme Court called for a recount of the votes in Florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

Palast shows that following the 2000-1 Presidential election stories of African American voters being targeted, racial profiling, that excluded voters from the electoral roll weren’t fake news, but fact. He had a copy of two CD-Rom disks from the office computer of Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State. 57 700 potential Democrat voters named as felons. Purged from electoral roll in the run up to the election. 90.2% innocent of any crime.  Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush spent almost the entire Republican budget on a computer hunt for black voters. What Governor Jeb Bush did was illegal. He later ran against Trump for leadership of the Republican Party. I guess he’ll be back for another try.

My favourite quote here was Trump telling Rupert Murdoch he was running for the Presidency and Rupert Murdoch telling him, ‘no, you’re not’. That’s power Without the backing of the Murdoch corporation and Fox News, of course, there’d be no President Trump.

Ironically, former Governor of Florida, George W. Bush had a prior drink-driving conviction (misdemeanour) therefore he shouldn’t have been allowed to vote, for himself, or anybody else. That purge would have added or subtracted one vote to the 500-600 chads he won the election (minus the 57 700 he’d have lost by).

We all know how the moron’s moron did it. What he did was not illegal. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook  took what was for him chump change,  most of the Republican candidate’s budget of around $44 million, and matched it with expertise. With Russian bot farms churning out memes and disinformation, Trump rode a wave of discontent all the way to the Whitehouse by winning the Electoral College, but not the popular vote. Hillary Clinton won more votes but lost the election.  

Florida signed a $4 million contract with DBT Online merged with ChoicePoint of Atlanta to purge voters. Cambridge Analytica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge also involved in the Brexit debate tried to keep their methods secret, claiming it was private and commercial information, but were outed by Guardian journalists.

Nothing new from the Trump handbook, with Mark Zuckerberg again handling Trump’s funds for re-election.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/02/trump-us-election-disinformation-russia

https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strategy-to-deter-millions-of-black-americans-from-voting-in-2016

The historian and author Robert A. Caro magisterial (unfinished) biography of Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ) offers another tale of straight forward electoral cheating. Caro juxtaposes LBJ’s fight for a senate seat with ‘Mr Texas’ Coke Stevenson.

Nobody much is interested in Box 13, or that old stuff called history. The guys in the photograph LBJ showed a hostile reporter are Texans that stole enough votes and stuffed them into Box 13 so that LBJ could become a Senator in the 1948 race. A race Mr Integrity Coke Stevenson won. He was diddled. LBJ became Senator and, his gamble he’d be a heartbeat away from the top job of President paid off when President John F. Kennedy was killed in Texas.

That’s the traditional way of doing things in American politics. Kamala Harris will be the first female President.

Robert A.Caro’s advice was turn every page and do the maths. Four years ago I thought Trump could win. I no longer think that now. ‘Power corrupts’ argues Caro, ‘but it also reveals’. What it has revealed about Trump is an unclean spirit channelling hate for his own gain. Or in other words of psychobabble: a psychopathic narcissistic personality with low intelligence.

Trump is not leading the dis-United States to disorder and disaster. Any politician can do that from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. Trump is the disaster. The risk of Armageddon is lessened with him gone.  Everything Trump touches turns to shit is the closest thing to the truth I’ve heard about the 45^th President. We can sleep in our beds more soundly with him gone. That’s a starting point. Not a finishing point. Go Joe Biden. Go. There can be no neutrals in the American election of the 46^th President. Mankind depends on it.