My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…June 24, 2023, Saturday
Weather for the day…62-72degrees
Podcast for the day “Prosecuting Donald Trump”
Dropped off just now, one of my older (and most epic) books "Death of heaven" (ebook discounted through July 2023 on Smashwords, as with my other writings there, or free) at my local Little Free Library on Lafayette Street today. I signed and inscribed it, “A Lafayette Avenue drop off.” Cool! Someone already picked up the previous book I had left, "Suffering Long Covid" (2022).
Speaking of which, long Covid...last Friday I got to see one of my kids and spouse in Quilcine, Jefferson County, north of me, across the Hood Canal Bridge, which is near to Bangor nuclear sub base/sub pens, tto attend a small concert from Victoria, BC, Canada, a Celtic music trio, Clanna Morna. I had a great time. But the next day it rained (and then for days until yesterday) leaving me not feeling so well. Today it’s sunny and it’s going to be warm and I’m feeling a lot better so I set off for a walk, after days off from walking since last Thursday’s walk.
I contacted my cousin, who also lives in Quilcene, about coming over to visit so we could go through our long late (1874) grandfather's stuff. I’m thinking about doing a documentary on him. It would be fascinating since back in the 1940s, 50s and 60s he was traveling the world. I have his old 8mm footage. For instance one of him walking through what was then Bombay, India. It shows a cow lazily walking down a main street in town. In examining his passport from the beginning of World War II, he was traveling around northern Africa and southern Europe and, South America, back in the early 1940s.
Why? Just for, fun? Well, he did do that. But were there other reasons? I also have his draft card from about that time. He had already been in WWI. The "Great War", the "War to end all wars". The war my last multi award winning documentary film was about, "Pvt. Ravel's Bolero". He traveled to places that may have been just for tourist reasons, but as he worked for the US Government later in life, it has to make one wonder. I'll need to do some FOIA requests (Freedom of Information Act) on him. [Yesterday (July 3) as this blog today is from a while back, I happened to talk to my older sister and tell her about this project and she's going to look through her things to see if she has any of Grandpa's documents or media]
I joined Ancestry.com years ago in 2008. I got my DNA done through them a few years ago, and also done by someone else for my ancestry and health info. It occurred to me I know more about my grandfather now, and my grandmother, then she ever knew about her husband, or he ever knew about his own family history. I traced my family line back through to the ninth century.
DNA then offered me even more and surprising information. For instance, one of our ancestors or a few, must have been a seafarer. One may have gone over with the Conquistadors. Because we have ancestors that show up in the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America around those times. I already know among other things, that I'm Black Irish (dad's side). A term that carries confusion and various explanations.
It’s now 9:16 AM and I’m approaching my first half mile of today's walk. It’s not hot yet, but I’m already thinking that before I finish today, I may think I started too late in the day. It’s only supposed to get up into the 70s but…we shall see.
Just passed a half mile and decided to switch over to Pod Save the World because... they’re talking about things I’m a little more interested in today. About India’s Prime Minister Modi visiting the US, and China, and Navalny in Russia who had tried to murder someone in Florida (Putin/Russia, not Navalny), and so on…
What is also interesting in the news this week is that the Pentagon somehow screwed up misplacing $6.5 billion that they still have available for sending resources to Ukraine, to fight against Putin’s criminal war in which he attacked another country without provocation, disregarding international borders like a toxic ex who can't let their once significant other go. War, ignoring history and reality because of Putin's petty, immature ego. Like Donald Trump. Damnaged personlaities.
I know this is nuts, but I have been a speculative fiction writer and reader all my life. And I wonder if it would be useful to have a small group dedicated to eliminating, if not autocracy around the world, its leaders… especially when they get out of hand. Had that been in place around the world, we would have eliminated what Modi has been doing in India? Or what Putin‘s doing in Russia? What Kim Jong-Un‘s lineage has long done to their citizeens? Or the GOP turning MAGA, worshipping Trump, and his cult?
Arizona (ADOA) selling over 2,000 shipping containers illegally put at their Arizona-Mexico border.
How much has conservative bullshit cost US in recent years?
THIS all cost AZ, $194million!
We’re selling drones to India? India’s long been buying their weapons from Russia to protect themselves from China. India and China having long been at odds in having a border between them. But I have to wonder if our drones are already now long compromised, if Russia has them, and been able to duplicate them? Since now India will have them, that would seem to indicate Russia soon having them, too. Friends, share, right? Just like in Trump having classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, it seems pretty clear then that we know China and Russia have at least copies of some of those documents (having acquired them, if in no other way, secretly), as well as probably North Korea, and God knows....anyone else who was interested.
Because the DAY those documents were moved out of the White House, every interested intelligence agency of every international enemy of America around the world also knew, and they were already planning how to get a hold of them. Possibly setting up plans, even before they moved out of the White House. THAT is how expionage works. In their anticipating ripping off the joke and disaster that Donald Trump is and always has been, and always will be, as he eventually and hopefully dies in prison.
Hey! Whatever happened to Pakistan? Or "migrant caravans" for that matter? How easily we do forget. We used to hear about Pakistan in the news, constantly. Lately? Pretty much nothing. So, nothting is going on there now, right? Uh huh...right. Sure.
About Trump's argument about the classified documents he didn’t give back right away, because as he put it...he "needed to go through them and pull out his personal [golf] shirts and things because he was too busy". OK? Too busy as we all saw, day after day after day playing golf. How long does it take to go through 60 boxes and pull out clothes? Which should’ve been done before they left the White House. Never being mixed with personal items. How hard is that to figure out? When you get a request to return something like classified docs, you drop everything, get it done, then bo back to having a life. Only a criminal, by definition, would view that differently. The boxes were labeled, and like I said, you don’t put personal items in them when leaving the White House. This is 100% on Trump who has no leg to stand on in this. So? Trump, still fat, lazy and stupid. No surprise there.
Trump's upcoming claims in court of his doing bad things because he's either stupid or delusional, can’t hold much water considering he was actually (somehow) President in the United States of America. If you’re that stupid and delusional, Article 15 should have been invoked, automatically. Which also means he couldn't be POTUS ever again. Shouldn't be. Never should have been. Which means he should also be disallowed from any public office. Considering his family's charity was a scam to make him money and of course was dissolved by court order.
Trump shouldn’t have anything to do with anything public at all, ever again. Including walking our streets. If I were king? I would give Trump his life in prison and in a regular prison, a regular prison cell, with no Secret Service protection. Should he die before his sentence is up of 100 or 200 years? So be it. Because what I would really do would be invoke capital punishment for reasons of treason and crimes against humanity, against our American citizens (and other countries), not to mention his incessant asinine stochastic terrorism, and a bit of direct terrorism.
It should be noted in Trump's narcissism and political desires, that he always does what he can to win the "news cycle". That’s something utterly and totally dysfunctional... in court. He's so screwed. Considering Jack Smith turned over things to him yesterday? You don’t do that so soon, unless it’s a slam dunk case against. What this means is today his lawyers are reading and "shitting bricks" in trying to figure out how to tell Trump. Who again, is so completely screwed. They have got to make a deal. Except, when you have a slam dunk with a criminal of this degree, you don’t make a deal with them. You prosecute to the full extent of the law with all due and deserved prejudice.
"All the best people“ who Donald Trump hired in the first part of his administration. he either got rid of, or they left, and refuse to support him since. They denigrate him at every chance possible trying to point out he should never be president again. Trump's childish ad hominems against these people and anyone he doesn’t like, or anyone who disagrees with him, who he calls "stupid" if they refuse to break the law for him...and yet his sad MAGA crowd does what? They rationalize it all off as him speaking like a “normal person“. Well? That’s... not... normal. And if that’s normal for MAGA? That is just them telling us who they are, and not someone we want as part of our political system, or our citizenry.
I need to update my jzmurdock.com website and on the front page below the revolving carousel of my books for sale. I need to put a list of interviews and such things on the first page rather than in the "Non-Fiction area. [and...I did play with it a bit after writing this]
I don’t understand how Israeli settlements in the Palestinian area are a good thing for humanity, or anybody, other than Israel. I used to like "Bibi" Netanyahu, but I don’t like his autocratic slant. It reminds me of Donald Trump. I also used to really like Trump, for superficial reasons as I only knew his trumped up and carefully curated bullshit public image. In the early 2010s I got to know him better with his Obama "birtherism" bullshit and his anti-democracy autocratic nonsense and learned more about his (and his family's) bigotry; that he’s basically a toxic narcissistic asshole who’ll destroy everything for his own gratification and benefit. The fact that any Americans support that kind of thing is just embarrassing, utterly humiliating, and on an international scale.
I recently saw a video my son sent me about an African in Africa, complaining about how we always hear about Jews in the Holocaust, but never about what happened in Africa under King Leopold the II. Well, I get that. But his numbers were vastly out of whack. He said "100 million Africans had been slaughtered". The best I can find is 10 to maybe 15 million. Now that’s a lot ! He has reason to be pissed. I appreciate his argument and outrage. Which is basically that white people equel "big travesty, but Black people, nothing". But he doesn’t need to use incorrect information, or maybe he’s just misinformed himself. But it brings up a point I've always wondered about it. With all we’ve heard about the Holocaust all my life, I’ve wondered, every time I heard about another genocide in some country around the world, why I didn’t first hear about how Israel was speaking up about it, leading the outrage? I seldom if ever heard that. Why? Maybe they did speak up, but why wasn't I hearing it? Why don't I remember that?
One would think those who speaks so much for themselves about something so horrendous, would speak for any and all others, whenever and wherever that happened again, or was even about to. Which leads me back to thoroughly not understanding the whole Israel/Palestine situation. I get it, there’s assholes, apparently on both sides, and both sides have a reasons to hate. But you would think a culture so steeped in such abuse for millennia would’ve figured out a way by now, better than what they’ve fallen upon, and into.
I had mentioned that it rained from last Saturday through this Tuesday. So Tuesday I got on my elliptical and did a single mile. Man, the next day, just 1 mile, I felt it in my calves and my stomach, my core. So I’m thinking if I can do 5 miles every other day, maybe I can do a mile or two on the elliptical in between, for a "rest" period. Such because it seems to be more greatly utilizing certain muscles that are good to use and get into tone.
Netanyahu is starting to look like Israel’s, Kevin McCarthy and the House of Representatives here in America. Making as many deals as he can to retain power. Sometimes it’s best to just step down move on. He stacked his government with right wing zealots, much as happened in our government and at some point one loses control. So even if he means to do well, he’s working against himself in having retained power.
The Ukrainian counteroffensive has not failed regardless what MAGA or RFK Jr. says. I got to say, I don’t see us helping in all and any ways that we should be. Even illegal ways using cut outs so we can't get blamed for it. Look, Putin‘s got to go. If not physically leave this earth, he has to have his reputation ruined with the Russian people. And I’m not seeing a lot of efforts on that.
"Spies, The Epic Intelligence Wars Between East And West" details, the espionage attempt by Russia to murder one of their own on American soil, in Florida. Russian spy, Alexandra Pootie, who told American intelligence about sleeper cells had led to the TV show “The Americans,” as written up in the New York Times. This is also related to Sergei Skripal whose attempted assassination (with his daughter) by Russian intelligence in the UK. Where this is important is that we have long wondered if Russia was willing to assassinate people in the UK, would they ever try it in America. Obviously they would. It’s good to note for our own awareness that the kind of shit Russia and Putin are doing now wasn’t being done during the "cold war". Certainly not so overtly. Something I was involved in, in the late 70s. I have my US government awarded "Cold Warrior" certificate hanging on my wall behind me, as I write this.
Facebook has been getting more and more in bed with an autocratic Vietnamese government against dissidents and citizens. Seems to me we need some laws about that for our multinational corporations involved in questionable government countries. I’m not sure what that could or would be, and for Facebook to just shut down, or Twitter, in some of these countries, where the Internet IS Facebook or Twitter, really is problematic. Vietnam is the seventh largest population using Facebook. 70% of the hundred million people in Vietnam use Facebook. Facebook’s reach and impact there is much bigger than Twitter, and in most countries. The interface in Vietnam for many to the Internet, IS Facebook. Facebook does have some power to push back in Vietnam however, because if the government removes Facebook it’s likely they would have some kind of uprising. Facebook likes touting openness and friendship and community, but really in the end, especially since they’ve laid off people who used to handle this kind of situation, it’s about profit, pure and simple. Facebook has been given a list of government officials by Vietnam who are not allowed to be spoken out against. So I guess if I lived in Vietnam, I would have to speak like Nostradamus did about the royal, the rich and powerful, in his own time, indirectly and encoded.
Interesting to know nowadays, especially in America when you hear the term "kangaroo court" or "witchhunt" by some officials who are being called out "on the carpet" for their bad behavior, that it’s probably not fake attacks against them. On the other hand, when you hear the more reasonable types calling out things like MAGA, as "kangaroo courts", or "kangaroo court commissions", or "kangaroo court hearings", I suspect the Kangaroo population of the planet is pretty offended by that.
America needs a real time office in Congress of Truth and Speech, but only to hold our pubuc office officials to task. And anyone caught lying on the floor of Congress. Which, anyway for now, is out for a month.
Podcast is over, switched over to The Intercepted. They’re talking about Erdegon in Turkey and how his recent electoral win put him as despot of Turkey, evermore, his autocratic government with a failing economy not headed into two decades of his rule and foolish and manipulated support. They are what MAGA could turn America into, what they want to turn America into even (remember CPAC has now been held in Hungary with Viktor Oban speaking). We should also remember the recent devastating earthquake in Turkey, where tens of thousands of buildings dropped, killing their citizens and remember how Erdogan gave contracts to his friends which I’m sure he got kickbacks from. Those builders cut building codes which led to many buildings collapsing and has to make one wonder, if those tragic deaths are actually not murders. Much like the 100,000+ Americans, who didn’t need to die of Covid, who are dead because of Donald Trump. So these leaders are all at least morally and ethically, guilty of crimes against humanity in their personal footnotes of history.
It’s so sad what a democracy gets locked into a downward spiral in supporting poor leaders, such as Erdogan in Turkey or Donald Trump with his moronic MAGA, in America.
America needs some kind of independent commission to fix what’s wrong with our government, at least the broad strokes. Gerrymandering is toxic in too many cases. Voter suppression is a serious problem and dirty tricks have led some perpetrators to guilty judgments and prison in suppressing voting during elections. Including spam political phone calls that our courts have found heavily stacked in favor of anachronistic beliefs and toxic conservatism. Our government or state governments (or national government) have been infiltrated by domestic enemies, and MAGA falls under that heading. To be sure, not all MAGA (or Republicans, although silence is enabling) have made themselves our domestic enemies. But the majority of our current domestic enemies are indeed, MAGA. And their "friends", the White Christian Nationalist and White Supremacisits, and... Neo-Nazis:
""By leaving a definitional vacuum around the word 'great,' it became
very easy for groups to co-opt it, ascribing to it the meaning they
wanted it to have," Van Brunt says. "The same way a mother rests easy
because her baby's food has 'all-natural' written on the jar, Nazis, the
KKK, and other white supremacists were able to feel good about Trump
because 'great' became interchangeable with white, heterosexual, male,
hate, oppress, deport."
The ironic thing about many dysfunctional government situations is, if (conservative/Republican) officials would just allow government to work, it could be efficient. Well, maybe not efficient, but functional. And it's what we’ve seen for many decades now, as Republicans try to jam up our government, or even just simply destroy it. Because they know they have bad ideas in their anachronistic beliefs, and they’ve become toxic to America and to humanity.
That’s why I have never been a conservative. Conservatism is for times of dire need and times of war. The belief that we are always in dire need, or always forever in some kind of war…is ridiculous. Think about that for a moment. When did the "war on drugs" begin? The 1970s. And what did it do but literally destroyed lives...and entire families? And it did NOT get the drug situation under control. Ruling through fear and power is why we have a country now as confused and damanged as we are in America. And yet it's white Republicans have been defaulting, over and over now, for decades. That, is how autocrats function.
Cheers! Sláinte!
