Joe Biden served America as 46th president. Does anyone wonder why Americans, many of them, never got to know him?
Joe, we barely knew ye.
Media billionaires pushed Joe off mainstream media channels; billionaire-bros algorithm-cleansed him from social media like X, Tic Tok, WhatsApp, Instagram et. al.
Right?
Worse, wealthy lunatics water-boarded Trump down our collective throats daily; hourly—for years! Who doesn’t reflexively puke when they look at a picture of that guy?
Why would owners of everything inflict a bad person like Trump on ordinary people? What toxic thing made Joe Biden loathsome to self-loving TITANS enuf that they felt free to offer we-little-ones alternative-Trump?
Has anyone other than Joe received as many freely-cast votes for anything anywhere during Earth’s short history of free-world civilizations?
Well?
Think about it.
The answer must be, “no”. Joe got 82 million votes: a feat not likely to be repeated for a long time.
So, what’s wrong with Joe?
Some say the debate proved him unfit. I challenge folks who think this way to watch the debate again.
BTW, why did Dems ditch Biden for a brownish woman who sensible folks must have known could not win election in slave-towns-everywhere USA?
Everyone knows that many Americans disrespect people they think are old. Worse, they hate blacks, foreigners, and women. Not everyone hates, but many do—nearing majority, it seems to me.
Who agrees?
Some say, we know, stupid.What else is new?
Well, people miss stuff when they don’t or won’t listen to folks who have lived thru hell. For me, I mistrust leaders who have no history of suffering. Who can respect the wisdom of folks who take but don’t give? Who trusts people whose judgment depends only on what they read in books or see in movies?
When Trump was a million $ in debt & on verge of bankruptcy, daughter Ivanka says they passed a beggar on the steps of one of daddy’s hotels. Beggar asked for money, which the Don refused. When Ivanka asked daddy, Why? he said the bum was a million dollars richer than him, because he had zero debt. The geezer with outstretched hand should give him money, he insisted.
Suffering is what all life endures. Who has watched geese fly south in winter? It’s beautiful until one sees that they race against time & weather. Many perish on the way. They drop from the sky and die. Opossums wander by and eat them.
Those who haven’t suffered haven’t learned anything useful when it comes to serving people, which is what good people try to do, at least sometimes, right?
Conspiracy theorists say that ICC-accused war criminal Netanyahu (PM of Israel) asked friends to force out Joe Biden, who some think he hates, in favor of Kamala Harris. In this way, he himself & Israel would secure protection from the International Criminal Court whether Trump or Harris won the US election or not. Regardless, Bibi wins both ways, though he admitted to favoring Trump, right?
We Americans, most anyway, will never learn truth about anyone as powerful as Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump. Guardians of fake news think we can’t handle truth. If we could many of us wouldn’t believe it anyway.
Joe Biden is prolly the only person alive who was both able and motivated to stop the killing of women & children in Gaza, to prevent illegal seizures of Palestinian land, & to block ethnic-cleansing of non-Jews in Israel, which everyone on Earth sees plainly except US.
But Biden’s enemies put him in a box. At least they think they did. When he’s gone, leaders in Israel & Russia believe their ambitions for conquest could finally be unshackled.
They might be right. I’ve read that one in seven Israelis are Russian. The two countries share some overlap in cultural & world views, perhaps. Israel’s material support for Ukraine’s struggle to remain free is rumored to be meager at best.
Meanwhile, during the past few years, Israeli citizens complain they lost freedoms. Some say the judiciary is toothless in the face of autocracy—worse than America, they claim. Street protests are common, but news outlets rarely cover them. Democracy seems to be crumbling in real time according to a few of those who build their homes in the lands of the Bible & War Everlasting.
With the USA election decided, doors to more suffering and dying of nameless unloved people are flying open. A Pandora’s demonic box spills into the holiest places, both in America and lands faraway.
Christ said a time would come when killers believe they do favors for God. It was one more crazy thing Jesus said that led to crucifixion.
Who heard North Carolina’s Michele Morrow, candidate for Superintendent of Public Schools, call for Pay-Per-View public executions by firing squad of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Shumer, Anthony Fauci, Andrew Cuomo, Roy Cooper, Ilhan Omar, & Bill Gates?
Yes, Michele got 49% of the vote, but she didn’t win the statewide contest, thank God. In fact, every Republican running statewide in North Carolina lost except one and one other: Trump, of course.
And yes, most readers will likely say, true; they didn’t hear or read a single word about Michele Morrow. Didn’t know story myself until I saw Rachel Maddow of MSNBC reporting it while I wrote this essay.
Another true fact: Elon is considering purchase of MSNBC, presumably to shut-up reporters like Maddow who don’t trust Musk & his buddies to do what’s fair and right for ordinary Americans. Is the noose tightening? Steve Bannon, released from Danbury prison during the election a few weeks ago, says MAGA will hold power for 50 years, according to Newsweek.
What I learned is that young people, many of them, seem to think the following: old people are generally dumb, fearful, & demented; black folks, women, & migrants are usually repulsive; MAGA gun owners are freedom fighters; Israel is right about everything; Ukraine makes Russia do bad things; social security is a joke; inflation is raging; rich as hell people are almost always righteous.
I was at a party and overheard women in their thirties laughing at “blue hairs”. Respect for older women seems to have gone missing somehow in America.
It’s clear to me that young adults, most of them, don’t understand what it’s like to live old in America. They fear aging like it was leprosy, which for most it is not. Young adults are oblivious to the wisdom that comes only to those who age to the natural end of life, a process that can last a hundred years or more for some.
Oppressed people sometimes disdain people like themselves. It’s strange. Black men and white women voted for Trump, right? Migrants & gay men voted for Trump!
Acolytes who chase money, sex, & power surround the man. He’s a magnet for deplorables. Ask Hillary, a Christian woman he slimed.
In 2015, I suggested to a group of Christians that Hillary Clinton was Mother Teresa compared to Trump. They laughed, because they considered the idea absurd on its face. False stories about a woman who endured humiliation to protect love that comes only from a family united poisoned their minds.
Everyone must know it’s true. The weird part is that most seem unable to grasp how hatred works to hold them back.
Love is the answer, yes, but is anyone asking right questions?
People bet their lives they’re right, not wrong. Russian officials have threatened nuclear war nearly every day since the invasion of Kiev on 24 February 2022.
Right-questions-time died a long time ago.
Humankind and planet Earth now depend on Donald Trump and his team to safeguard everything we love. During transition of power, how the GOP behaves, what their leaders say and do, will have major impacts on everything that’s going to happen now and in the future.
Last time it was Covid. One million died, some experts say two.
No one listened to experts then or now.
Could things get worse this time around?
God in Heaven, hear this prayer:
Deliver Earthlings from all harm. Amen
How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?Jesus — speaking to Jewish leaders in the Book of John.
I was born.
A few months later, on 14 May 1948, the UN created Israel, a parcel of land in west Palestine where, displaced by the Holocaust, Jewish refugees could at long last find sanctuary.
Leon Uris wrote a bestselling novel about the period — Exodus. Perhaps some have read it. It’s good.
Based on the book, Otto Preminger produced an award-winning film that starred Paul Newman.
Who has seen it?
Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay.
Trumbo is best known for writing the movie, Spartacus — uncredited at the time because a Congressional committee had declared Trumbo communist during the McCarthy era, right? Entertainment moguls blacklisted Trumbo, but a few producers used his talent surreptitiously for various projects.
Look it up, any who don’t believe.
Despite pervasive propaganda to persuade us otherwise, the USA has never been the land of the free and the home of the brave. Yes, it is a cherished line from our national anthem, true. It’s aspirational to every patriot.
But are not American heroes almost always outlaws? — men and women who endure abuse, injury, arrest, prison, and death to move history forward. Bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice is not a quest for cowards.
Think of Martin Luther King, accused by the FBI of being both communist and a serial adulterer. Think of Harriet Tubman, abolitionist and friend of Frederick Douglas, who got her arms broke for riding in the wrong compartment on a train.
Think of John and Bobby Kennedy — John shot soon after firing CIA director Dulles and his acolytes, then reversing Eisenhower’s military buildup in Vietnam; Bobby shot after challenging the Mafia, then daring to oppose Lyndon Johnson for president.
It’s not safe to challenge certain people. Bad people have no limits. It’s one reason people fear them. They kill whoever is in the way to take whatever they want. What they seem to want most is to unleash hell.
Right?
Watch Al Pacino’s movie Scarface for a vivid picture, any who doubt. Who is old enuf to remember that Scarface was the nickname of Chicago mob boss Al Capone, which Cuban interrogators gave to Aleida, wife of Che Guevara? Dictator Batista spread a story that his dogs chewed her face during torture.
Why he spread fake news is anyone’s guess. Some readers might know that Howard Hughes produced the first Scarface movie in 1932. After a heart attack killed Batista in Spain in 1973, Brian De Palma cast Al Pacino in his 1983 version — resurrecting Batista’s nickname for Aleida to anoint his blockbuster.
I’m sick at heart about what’s going on right now in the Middle East. It’s beginning to dawn on ordinary people that leaders there are ruining lives. Children are among the innocents who are dying by the thousands. Ideals are dying, as well.
(Nov. 4, 2023: the United Nations OCHA announced 1.5M civilians displaced inside Gaza.)
The Two State Solution is dead. Its time came and went. Hamas and the IDF killed it.
Who disagrees?
Only the blind do not see emerging in the rubble a path toward some kind of apartheid, where two peoples live apart — separate and unequal. Gaza has become an Orwellian nightmare. The West Bank is a killing field. These horrors cannot continue. They have become wildfires consuming all we love and igniting the world.
Modern weapons of war are lethal beyond belief. Who has heard whispers that certain conventional weapons in the arsenal of USA are capable enuf to repulse nuclear first strikes?
Imagine.
Gaza City at night, October 2023
Cities in Gaza and Ukraine are being reduced to dust in days by conventional weapons produced by both North Korea and the United States.
Who will think about what it means? — for a short time, if necessary, to any who have warm hearts beating and minds not yet driven to ghosts by terror that in peacetime ought not be thinkable.
What the hell are we doing?
Who understands that the One State Solution has already come to Palestine?
It is unthinkable to most Americans that realities on the ground could be anything other than what they are, but history proves to all but the naive that current contours of hate cannot survive into the future. The inevitability of change never changes.
The question is whether people will be permitted to live together under some kind of Bill of Rights, which in the American experience at least secures for each person certain inalienable rights, which enable them to live free and unrestrained by whatever superstitions of religion and cults might be fashionable at the time.
It is obvious to most reasonable folks that attitudes and aspirations on all sides must become more realistic, more aligned with decency and respect for differences.
It’s virtually impossible for ordinary people to speak truth to power. The meek fear power. They don’t want to get hurt — or worse. Yet, who hasn’t heard it said that the meek inherit the earth?
It’s why the powerful are always last to know when their time is done. The world changes, no one tells them, and they lose the time they had to set things right. This story consumes all of history, doesn’t it? — it’s an endless journey through human suffering.
Confusion sets in when folks realize that the USA and its allies are talking about collapse of the Russian economy and military, which they hope will cascade into a meltdown of Russia’s cartels and mob bosses—called Motherland and friends by “President of Russia” Badimire Sputim.
BS doesn’t talk collapse. He talks apocalypse.
Surrender Ukraine or be destroyed.
In his view, no force on Earth can stop what is about to happen. God is on his side, plus he is deploying nukes and hypersonic missiles.
Who is stupid enuf to argue?
The United States views things differently. For one thing, it is fed up with Russia’s current crop of oligarchs, who it regards as thugs.
Anyone guess why?
Well, lots of reasons—here’s three: Russia manipulates the US electorate with bots, which sew chaos to confusion on social media; it gives aid and comfort to a rogue president; it is in bed with more than a few American politicians. Look to Kentucky, anyone who is skeptical.
Ask Thomas Massie, Ron Paul, and Mitch McConnell about shell games played in eastern Kentucky by aluminum processors who seem to be associated with sanctioned oligarchs. How difficult can it be to understand?
Russian media drumbeats into the minds of its public an idea that the Kremlin is not at war with Ukraine at all but instead with NATO and the West, which Russo Talking Heads call SATANISTS. Watch Russian media, anyone who doesn’t believe.
BS sells the fight as spiritual warfare to defend faith and family values. Sound familiar? To a man, priests of the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church push matching narratives. Is it not curious that Iran—run by clerics—agrees? The West is evil. Russia, which everyone knows is “indestructible,” is duty bound to set things right.
Here’s BS: “Once again we see that Nazism in its modern guise creates direct threats to Russia, and we are repeatedly forced to repel aggression of the collective West,” Badimire said on 2 February 2023—anniversary of the Russian victory over Germany during the WW2 Battle of Stalingrad.
BS continued, “Again, we are threatened by German tanks marked by crosses. The hands of Hitler’s followers will again attack Russia on the land of Ukraine.”
BS continued with the ridiculous proclamation that Russia has many friends in North America and Europe. He added, “In any event Russia has weapons that make tanks and armored fighting vehicles irrelevant.”
To avert catastrophe, Church and State in at least two countries have followed Sputim to fight for God and Civilization. Others hesitate. They stand on the sidelines and watch. Some hedge their bets by encouraging BS—secretly, they hope.
Iran, India, China, North Korea—must they wonder, who knows? …Is it possible that when fighting ends, Satanists & Nazis will count Russia’s dead? What are options then?
Only “true believers” are certain of outcomes, right? As for the rest of humanity, no one knows what happens next except God. How confident can realistic thinkers be that events unfold as they hope?
The Bible says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” Proverbs 16:33 NIV
Strange things happen, right? Read history, anyone who doubts.
Meanwhile, the BS plan is to restore the righteous empire of Catherine the Great, whatever the cost in lost treasure and blood. For the past eleven months, top officials led by BS, have threatened western cities and capitals with annihilation, I don’t know, maybe a dozen times? They say they will unleash weapons of war we know nothing about.
All I can say, based on personal experience, is that the USA takes all threats seriously.
I ain’t lyin’.
Until the advent of this particular conflict in Ukraine, didn’t Team USA manage to prevail one way or another every time? Even in Afghanistan, America and its allies turned the country inside out to map every patch of terrain. With modern surveillance and agents left behind, no surprises will likely emerge from that moonscape for decades. With any luck at all, Mission Accomplished.
Who disagrees?
Russian evisceration of Ukraine is a Crusade for Christ’s sake, BS seems to believe. Everyone who studies medieval history knows that in the ancient past Crusaders demanded bloodletting. Some histories say blood flowed in Jerusalem streets knee-deep.
How can leveling cities & murdering innocents be wrong when Christian Crusaders did it? might be the BS way of reasoning.
No way.
Is destroying enemies what modern faith-warriors do?
As for obliterating Ukraine, BS seems to think that he and God are on the same page…!
Imagine the unimaginable. BS destroys planet Earth to save it from the Satanic West and guess what? He goes to Heaven after, when everyone else is dead.
Almost wonderful.
Heaven is prolly full of madmen and killers.
Heaven is where BS wants to live someday, someone said. Maybe he hopes to meet friends and find happiness. To please God, BS will follow the plan, which is to donate gold to repave streets, apparently.
Almost perfect.
Micah 7: 3-6
Both hands are skilled in doing evil; the ruler demands gifts, the judge accepts bribes, the powerful dictate what they desire — they all conspire together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright worse than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come, the day your watchmen sound the alarm. Now is the time of your confusion.
People don’t want to believe it, but Russia can win a conventional war against Ukraine without nuclear weapons. It doesn’t mean they will.
Outcomes of conventional wars are simply not predictable… too many variables, too many unknowns. Another problem is that all sides of a conflict tend to lie—both to themselves and others. During war, it’s hard to know what’s true.
One thing thinking people seem to know for sure: war always turns into a mess, which ruins the lives of people who experience it up close and personal. People who fight on the ground in war say that combat is loud, remote, confused, and incomprehensible. They are unlikely to meet anyone on the other side until they drive over their corpses.
And that is on a good day.
War wears folks down, weakens physical and mental health, and imprints on warrior-minds vivid sights, smells, and sounds they don’t forget.
A cousin who fought in Vietnam shakes like a leaf when in public spaces. He is unable to stand in lines, even to buy a sandwich. Somehow, crowds, and people standing in lines, trigger bad memories he can’t set aside.
Of course, he’s stone deaf as well—his ears ring like bell towers. The constant roar doesn’t stop until he sleeps. A Marine helicopter gunner, he blew out his ears with the sound of his own fires.
As for nuclear war, the most important rumor I’ve heard is that the USA modernized its nuclear fleet during the Obama years. Though classified, reliable people have published reports, I’m told, that money spent on upgrades soared to as high as two-trillion dollars. If true, Americans can be assured that the USA nuclear fleet is modernized and probably works damn good. It’s a staggering state of affairs, which adversaries are wise to take to account.
Maintaining nukes is not cheap or easy, right? It requires frequent replenishing of triggering elements which, unfortunately for war-planners, possess half-lives which last months, not years. It is why nuclear power plants are essential.
As for power plants, do readers know that neutron-emitting elements tend to poison fuel rods? After rods expend a mere 5% or so of their fuel, neutron-generating elements called poisons gum-up fuel rods to make them useless for power generation. Spent fuel rods typically are stored on-site in cooling ponds until their poisons can be extracted to boost quickly decaying trigger elements essential for bomb detonation.
Need for neutron-emitting trigger materials is why every country that builds nuclear bombs builds nuclear power plants. The secret keys to success hide in spent fuel rods.
It’s obvious, right?
Why would any right-minded country risk building future Chernobyls and Fukishimas unless it had really good reasons? One good reason is trigger materials. Isn’t it true that almost anyone can make cheap electricity from almost anything? — water, coal, sun, oil, natural gas, wind, or whatever, right?
Why nuclear?
Yes, plutonium lasts for millennia, but triggers don’t. To keep nuclear weapons viable for years and decades, not weeks or months, bombs must be continuously resupplied with reliable sources of neutron-emitting elements, which can be harvested most easily from fuel rod poisons.
It is easy to understand.
Most Americans assume USA concentrates its intelligence resources to keep up to date on the status of others’ nuclear inventories. What do they have, where is it hidden, how well is it maintained? Some understand that USA super-computers connect with hi-tech surveillance systems to track every piece of nuclear hardware and every kilogram of plutonium and bomb-grade uranium anywhere on planet Earth.
It’s true.
The technology is not new.
Here is a video from 2017 that lays it out. No excuses to anyone for choosing ignorance. Try to understand.
Some don’t believe blanket surveillance is possible. Listen folks. The system is already built. Artificial intelligence assesses threats and then tells leaders who it will be who prevails after a nuclear exchange on any given day.
Hint: most days, it doesn’t seem to be Russia or China.
Prolly not the USA, either.
Joe Biden insists that winning nuclear war is simply impossible. I have no way to know; neither does any civilian or any other person who lacks access to the super AI technologies of the United States.
Is there anyone out there who believes delusional dictators can be trusted to safely possess weapons of mass destruction? These strongmen threaten to unleash hell, presumably, using anything from viruses to chemical poisons to nuclear fires to cyber implosions that collapse civilizations. Who’s going to tell them, no…
Shouldn’t humanity be working to outlaw dictatorships? Individuals who have accumulated enough wealth and unchecked power to make war are a clear and present danger to humanity and all non-human life on Earth as well.
A line needs to be established; anyone who crosses becomes a felon — subject to arrest by the international community. The line divides those who have seized unlawful wealth and excessive power. The line must be defined and defended by international courts established by free nations. How hard can it be?
Limits are necessary or humanity is destined to be driven to extinction by a handful of folks driven mad by reckless power.
Can we face some unpleasant facts? Russian and Chinese elites hold at least 1.2 billion people under some kind of house arrest inside their territories, right? It’s a style of living that seems alien to Americans. Doesn’t everyone long to live free and unafraid? Doesn’t everyone want to shout whatever they think is true without fear of prison or worse?
If Putin and his ilk continue down the path they are on—threatening others with nuclear terror on their Fox-equivalent state media—maybe those who oppose their catastrophic ambitions might, with a little luck and a lot of bravery, prevail to someday see dreams of freedom and peaceful living come true at last.
It’s gotta be possible, right?
Who disagrees?
Does anyone want to live in a post-apocalyptic world—especially one where one side “wins bigly?”
Some folks say nuclear Armageddon is impossible. One side wins, and life goes on as it always does.
My problem with such views is fear that survivors of nuclear war might look like jellyfish and live at the bottom of oceans.
It’s why monsters who possess WMDs should be given no quarter in a world where folks plan to live free someday without fear.
Update: 7 February 2023 Tonight, President Joseph Biden established himself, at last, leader of the Free World. He serves at the hour of Earth’s greatest danger, its greatest need. Pray, those inclined, he gets everyone through unharmed. Speech starts at minute 26.
The Editors
The New York Times surprised some readers by refusing to include the name of Joe Biden (current president of the United States) even once in the first and second sections of its Sunday issue (24 April 2022).
38 silent pages.
Think.
On the second-to-last page of another section—the Sunday Review—Ross Douthat stepped up. He wrote an editorial with the word “Biden” in it.
Joe Biden doesn’t like oligarchs, and they don’t like him. They called him Communist when he first ran for elected office. Who remembers? It wasn’t true then and isn’t now. To my mind it had more to do with his Irish roots and connections to other prominent, unpopular Irish Americans like the Kennedy’s.
How about that?
Is hatred why Americans see Trump in their daily media feeds more than Biden?
Oligarchs own media, right? A half-dozen men, give or take, hold ultimate control over 90% of what Americans see and read. Billionaires have problems with Biden because they don’t control him. It’s why they ignore everything he says and does—when they can.
Jimmy Carter had the same problem. Who is old enough to remember? Carter holds historical honor for being the only U.S. president who served his term without murdering anyone. But that was then. This is now.
Is Joe benevolent?
I really don’t know.
The entitled rich hope Biden will go away and that others more favorable to wealth and its privileges will take his place. Media announced today that a rich man bought Twitter for 50 billion dollars, give or take. The man claims to be acting in good faith to bring freedoms of speech inspired by public forums of ancient Greece.
He calls it digital town square.
Everyone knows he will unleash dogs of Trump on vulnerable Americans who lack protections afforded by wealth and gated living. Who wants to argue loud in public spaces where monsters lurk to harm their families and friends off-line?
Does anyone believe free speech emanates from the enterprise of unstable manic-depressives accountable to no one?
Not to pick on any particular oligarch—all pose dangers—but Elon Musk didn’t become a U.S. citizen until age 30—a short 20 years ago. Despite tenuous ties to America, he manages to gather popular support. He plays Congress like a fiddle. Congressional appropriations flow like water. Clearly, he keeps more than a few Benjamins for himself.
It’s not right.
Our founding fathersbelieved that power corrupts those who wield it. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s why we govern ourselves with three co-equal branches of government.
Checks and balances are fundamental to prevent fallible humans—whose success blinds them to their own flawed visions—from overwhelming the Constitutional freedoms enshrined in our Bill of Rights.
Who disagrees?
To cut to the chase, it is insane for civilized society to permit private individuals to accumulate the wealth and power of governments. What is the point of civilization if not to limit the horrors of jungle living?—to stanch suffering, which always follows when might makes right in those arenas where the strong disrespect and eat the weak.
Proud people create elected governance to protect their rights; they don’t hide behind private cartels who don’t really care about us,Michael Jackson warned.
Sergei Lavrov is one of Russia’s wealthiest men. Yesterday, this privileged strongman threatened nuclear war. He said, “…we must not underestimate it.”
It is never good to permit dictatorial power and nuclear weapons to mean-spirited bullies who intend to destroy civilization should they not get their way. The USA put leaders of Russia on notice that they will not outlive Ukraine.
Who is brave enough to acknowledge what everyone knows? Ordinary people are fed-up with oligarchs and dictators. People want to breathe free without fear.
Secretary of State Blinken said, “But we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene.“
The most notorious terrorist threatened by the USA was Osama Bin Laden. They fed him to sharks. Later, they killed unrepentant members of his family. Putin might be wise to apologize now and start nuclear disarmament talks. Then again, it might be too late.
Who believes he will take the opportunity? The chance to survive Hell is better, some advisors might argue.
The Russian “president” seems to think that because Bin Laden didn’t possess nuclear missiles or hypersonic technologies of war, he couldn’t win. Is it really possible that Bin Laden could have conquered Earth had he mastered the alchemies of the current crop of Russian leaders?
Who knows?
The international scene requires x-ray vision. One in five sanctioned oligarchs seem to be Israeli citizens—according to a recent analysis published in the Jerusalem Post. Say it isn’t true, Joe. Apparently, USA’s closest ally and friend is protecting powerful people who are entangled with Russian wise guys. It’s not a good look.
I’d say it’s terrifying. Who wouldn’t?
Kentucky politicians—readers, some of them, know who they are—sleep in the same bed as Russian oligarchs who control much of the world’s aluminum supply. Reports say they operate a manufacturing plant in Kentucky which employs thousands. Is there anyone who understands how difficult the situation becomes for countries where international thugs accumulate vast monies and political powers?
The mighty must know that with age comes loss. Everyone they love and know will die before them should they enjoy long life. What good does wealth and power do anyone who is confined to a wheel-chair unable to control even the beating of their own heart?
What chance is there that the powerful will give all they have to the poor to serve the cause of love for the unlovable, which is what most of 8 billion humans are. Will anyone say it out loud? Most people are unloved and uncared for by those who together have the resources to make a better world for everyone now living and for those who will come after.
It is incomprehensible to me that advantaged people would shell the shit out of people simply because they are in the way—through no fault of their own. Apart from the love of God, I don’t see how human civilization as we know it today will survive.
Perhaps the powerful have made a calculation that Earth is better off when humans are reduced to a few hundred million souls, not billions. They have the ability to minimize us all—to zero, I suppose.
The United States has the power and skills to get everyone through the current crisis unharmed.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
I want to believe it’s true. I don’t know for sure.
Who will save us?
Joe Biden walks in the gap between civilization and Armageddon. He’s the last man standing able to rescue humanity from the slavery that follows the victory of totalitarianism.
Maybe it’s time to climb aboard his peace train while all sides still can.
Billy Lee
EDITORS NOTE: Added 8 May 2022: NYT Joe Biden blackout blooms. No mention of Joe Biden & family in Sunday Edition. In fairness, the Friday May 6 online newsletter published a briefing on page 10 titled, “Biden’s Unpopularity.”
Top people charged with responsibility to protect and defend the United States know with certainty two facts, which the American people can only guess.
Who knows what they might be?
Think long and hard.
Maybe destinies of powerful persons, their families and friends, collaborators and enablers, hang in the balance.
Does anyone know?
Lives and legacies might depend on what Team USA believes it knows for certain.
Are we in a bio-war or not? If so, with whom?
Did someone throw the 2016 election and install a Manchurian Imposter?
Well… ??
Who is destabilizing America? Are legions loyal to foreign oligarchs and who intend us harm infiltrating Parties, paramilitaries, social media, and talk radio?
What about television news shows?
Believe it or not, people exist who know with certainty the answers to these questions. They possess power to set things right. They work for Team USA.
America’s defenders know which answers are yes and which are no. They are able to distinguish between threats that are crazy-talk and those which are dead serious. They possess data bases filled with names, phone numbers, and addresses of people who plot mayhem.
If they choose, they can put stealth missiles through the bedroom windows of those who have the wherewithal and intent to start World War Three. No one believes it, but it’s true.
The United States rules Earth. It isn’t going to change—not ever.
Folks who aren’t American, some of them, don’t understand. The USA rules because it knows how to identify threats and neutralize them. A lot of wannabe dictators could testify in the affirmative but unfortunately for them they are dead.
Why does power concentrated for long in the hands of solitary sociopaths drive some insane? Power-trippers, most of them, learn too late that their inevitable screw-ups suck like quicksand to extinguish their ambitions. History is filled with such stories.
It might be better for some folks to have never been born. They suffer in this life and maybe the next. Their goal?—to make their subjects as miserable as they can. It’s not right.
My dad worked for the National Security Agency when he wasn’t flying jet-helicopters to defend our eastern borders from adversarial submarines. I met and knew his friends. In their world, right made might, not the other way around.
I can assure readers that those I knew who served to defend American freedom were the good-guys. The world has no hope of living free absent the United States.
Yes, some of our oligarchs are depraved and crazy. Americans will deal with them eventually, right? For now, we face another decision, which is whether to settle scores with oligarchs who live elsewhere who may have tried to hurt us.
No ordinary person who lacks security clearances can say which threats are real and which are conspiracy theories told to divert attention from terrors most folks are not well-trained to handle.
People today deny it, but truth is—80 years ago—the Japanese people, some of them, wanted to be conquered by America. They longed for freedom, prosperity, and most of all for our collective sense that right and wrong mattered.
It’s why they obeyed their emperor and attacked Hawaii. Some generals knew full-well defeat was sure to follow, because they were sophisticated and well-traveled. They understood America. Being undone by Americans meant those in their families who survived war would soon live free and proud. When annihilation finally came it would bring fresh wind; they and everyone left alive would be delivered from evil.
There was no other way.
I lived in Japan for two years following the Korean War. The Japanese people, many of them, worshipped the righteous ground we walked on. We were heroes.
Today, America is led by loving people (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) who care about doing what is right and fair. Unfortunately for our adversaries, we might have scores to settle. I have no way to know for sure. What some adversaries don’t seem to understand is that whatever are the stakes, events which will shape the future are already well-planned and underway as I write.
Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war-making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. For the United States, freedom is not a chess match; it’s not a game of Pong or Checkers.
We don’t fuck around.
If it’s true that scores will soon be settled, then the lives of powerful people, their families and friends, their collaborators and enablers in lands faraway are at this moment in grave danger.
America goes for the jugular of those who fuck with us. We hit leaders first if we can, last if we must.
When conflict comes, the takedown of foreign oligarchs who have messed with our democracy will be ruthless and total.
Who disagrees?
When it’s over the world will be a better place.
Yes, a few bad people will end-up missing. The best part is no one will miss them because everyone they know will disappear. It’s how civilization advances against barbarism when options vanish.
My advice to people who have done wrong is to write notes of apology to America and its friends. Tell us what you did wrong and what you regret. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Americans love apologies and are eager to forgive with open hearts any who are contrite and filled with remorse.
Leaders of the World:
Bring freedom to your peoples by dividing your governments into co-equal branches where no one person or like-minded group can seize power; where consent of the governed determines the course of history.
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: 19 August 2020. Billy Leeinforms us that tonight Kamala Harris gave best VP acceptance speech ever. He understands why Biden picked Harris for VP.
In spite of Billy Lee’s loss of skepticism, WE THE EDITORS insist his original essay stay in place to provide historical context for 2020 election.
People who read my blog know that I consider Trump a lunatic who is looting our country on behalf of his family and billionaires everywhere.
The irony of course is that his opponent just picked a VP who is married to one of the world’s wealthiest men — an attorney who may have made hundreds-of-millions representing billionaires in court. Kamala Harris claims they are worth together a mere $5.8 million.
I remember reading reports about her husband’s wealth being much more, but it was years ago, maybe it was fake news or the money has been moved, I don’t know. Anyhow, I cannot prove it today — mainly because much seems to have been rewritten on the internet about Kamala to make her palatable to voters.
That’s what it looks like from where I sit. In a few years everyone will know the truth, right? The truth always comes out, does it not?
Douglas Emhoff apparently made his money and powerful friends by helping certain oligarchs secure almost perpetual rights over intellectual property that they neither created nor are entitled to own overly long under the law; it is a battle about money and power that few regular folks know anything about.
Copyrights and patents expire for a reason — to prevent oligarchs from securing monopoly powers over the technologies and art that improve the lives of ordinary people.
Patents and copyrights expire to prevent the wealthy from securing for their families an infinite future of privilege they haven’t earned; to stop billionaires from becoming feudal lords in a country that prides itself on individual liberty and the innovation that comes from setting liberty free.
Copyrights and patents that are passed down from generation to generation — or sold to corporations to be held nearly forever — are un-American. Defending the unfair extension of such ownership in court is not an honorable way to make a living, at least to my way of thinking.
Today, oligarchs — the rich and powerful — are tightening their grip on countries around the world. People do not need a degree in political science to know that a 77-year-old man might not survive to see 20 January 2021, which is inauguration day. Joe Biden’s first major personnel decision has made it more likely that Kamala Harris will be president sooner rather than later.
Does Kamala Harris have the wisdom, maturity, pedigree, and experience to be president? These questions have to be asked, because it is possible Kamala Harris is going to be president soon.
By the time readers finish this post they will understand why I believe her ascent to power might not necessarily be too good for either the world or the United States. They will understand why I believe that Election 2020 is going to become a brawl between wealthy people who do not really care about us; the four candidates have almost nothing in common with ordinary people.
Media commentators on both left and right are parroting the same talking points. A black woman is running for VP. Isn’t that something?
The truth as I see it is far different. Kamala Harris is not a member of that group of suffering people in the United States whose great-grandparents were traumatized by slavery. She shares precious little experience with a people whose lives were torn apart by forced family separations, segregation, and Jim Crow.
Harriet Tubman. She knew all the players in the Underground Railroad. She was a spy for the Union during the Civil War. Bad things happened to her, but she never stopped fighting for what was right.
When Kamala claims she shared the black experience of racial discrimination because she took the bus to a school already integrated, she is misrepresenting her personal history by making it seem as though she suffered in some tragic way. Her story sounds phony. She comes across as inauthentic, at least to me.
Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a cancer researcher from India. Shyamala passed, sadly, in 2009 from the disease she spent her life trying to understand. Kamala’s dad, Donald Harris, is a retired Jamaican economist who emigrated to the USA and worked at Stanford University in California where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus.
Kamala’s dad is the progeny of the prominent sugar baron and slave owner Hamilton Brown who was Irish. The heritage of Kamala’s dad is that of owner, not slave, plus he’s mostly white; indeed he’s Irish.
Kamala has many admirable qualities but a slave heritage is not one of them.
I think Biden might have picked Kamala because of their shared Irish ancestry. He says she and his son (who died) were close friends.
Kamala does not have the blood of American slavery running through her veins. Because of a sadistic repression, American slaves were unable to throw off their chains to free themselves like other slave populations in the Western Hemisphere. The cost was too high. The ancestors of some of my black friends had their bones broken, were castrated and boiled alive for trying.
Kamala does not share this history. My friends can speak for themselves. They don’t need me to tell their history. It doesn’t mean that they don’t take Kamala’s side against Trump, who is an existential threat to minorities because he is an unrepentant racist.
The feeling for me is that some will see little or no difference in the two tickets; the pundits will not be able to convince enough people to vote in 2020 to ensure that our current president relinquishes the power he seized against the popular will in the last election when minority voters, some of them, stood in line for six hours to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
Trump lost the presidency by 11 million votes; 3 million of the margin went to Hillary Clinton; the rest to 3rd party candidates like Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, and others.
Without a huge turnout of black voters, Joe Biden has no chance against Donald Trump. The president has already promised to challenge any election that doesn’t go his way. He has no plans to step down.
Shyamala and Donald Harris divorced when Kamala was 7; by age 12 Kamala moved to Canada with her mother. Kamala has more in common with Canadians than black Americans.
If Biden believes that Black Lives Matter, why did he not select the most qualified and prepared person he could find? Why not select Susan Rice whose dad Emmett J. Rice forged the original Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two?
Why did he not choose Val Demmings? — who Wikipedia says was ”one of seven children born to a poor family; her father worked as a janitor, while her mother was a maid.”
Ms. Demmings rose to become a Chief of Police in Orlando, Florida, of all places. She organized the impeachment hearings against President Trump. Who better to galvanize Democrats for Biden in the great state of Florida? — a state he is now likely to lose.
One thing that concerns me about Kamala Harris is the unfortunate circumstance of her not having birthed nor raised children of her own. Perhaps it wasn’t her choice. But it means that she lacks the wisdom common to women who birth and raise babies to adulthood. It gives them a dose of wisdom and experience that childless people including men don’t have.
It’s not something that can be easily minimized no matter how much we want it to not matter. I’m not trying to insult people who remain childless. But one reason to vote for a woman is to gather that wisdom common to mothers for the benefit of our country and its children. Kamala Harris doesn’t have it. We’re missing an important piece of the jigsaw that makes women good choices for leadership.
Another concern is the reports circulating on the internet that she is estranged from her father. I think it’s more likely that at age 82 he might not have his wits about him enough to manage a television interview. But he has criticized Kamala in the past for bragging about smoking high-quality Jamaican weed.
Professor Harris considered his daughter’s remark a self-aggrandizing slam against Jamaica’s reputation. She made it to garner support from pot-smokers, he said according to reports.
An inability to reconcile over disagreements about marijuana use seems far-fetched to me. I worry that hatred generated by some other issue might be at its root, and Americans should know what it is. It might be nothing at all. We need to know before we cast a vote that if it carries will change all our lives.
The reason is because anyone who can’t reconcile with their own family is not someone who should hold in their hands the briefcase of nuclear codes. It doesn’t matter who they are or who their family is. They can be the best person in the world. But it’s better that they be well-adjusted with a head unclouded by any desires for revenge; without any imagined scores to settle.
After all it’s the power of the United States that’s being entrusted. Every family has problems, but serious family problems are a red flag that voters are wise to consider. Voters have a duty to know as best they can the truth about a girl whose world was ripped apart by divorce at age 7 and again at age 12 when her mother moved her against her will to a cold, foreign land where she couldn’t speak the language (French).
Her only marriage was celebrated inside a courtroom during August 2016 to Douglas Emhoff, a single parent with two teenagers. It was a marriage that helped her career in politics, because it gave her access to a reservoir of money and the powerful friends of her husband.
Douglas Emhoff’s ex-wife is Kerstin Emhoff, the Hollywood and British film producer and co-founder of PRETTYBIRD and Ventureland. According to its website, ”PRETTYBIRD is one of the world’s most prestigious production companies in branded storytelling”. Apparently, Kerstin manages a stable of artists that number, I don’t know, in the hundreds, maybe?
Douglas, Kerstin, and Kamala behave like they are good friends both in public and on social media.
Maybe the court-approved union between Kamala and Douglas helped them avoid the awkwardness of a marriage ceremony normally held in temple or church when Kamala had no plans to convert to her husband’s religion nor he to hers. Neither did she intend to take on the mantle of his name — something as American as apple pie. Perhaps Kamala Emhoff didn’t ring the right tone in the ears of someone who was plotting strategies to grasp the golden ring of ultimate power.
Who doesn’t agree that the words Kamala Harris-Emhoff have a pleasant resonance? It’s like the smell of incense. It is. Who wouldn’t want the name if they had the opportunity to carry it?
Anyway, Kerstin Emhoff continues to carry her ex-husband’s name without any problems at all, apparently. Why do people make the decisions they do?
There is nothing wrong with a woman choosing to not carry her husband’s name. I personally wouldn’t marry a woman who made that choice, but it’s a personal decision that is none of my business unless it involves me personally. I don’t care one way or another when it comes to someone else’s marriage. What I’m worried about is that this “name thing” might be a way to camouflage a fortune in assets that Kamala doesn’t want the world to know about.
Or maybe her husband doesn’t want Kamala to know about his true worth. I wonder if the money is under the control of his ex-wife. Maybe there isn’t any money.
Who knows?
Not me.
But this power-couple is running for what is going to turn out to be the presidency. People kill for that kind of power. So I raise questions because someone has to. Hopefully the answers are innocent and nothing untoward or unseemly is going on behind the curtains.
If everything turns out to be on the up and up and folks are telling the truth, then we have nothing to worry about that can’t be fixed by experience and learning from one of the best — Joe Biden.
I don’t know Kamala, so I can’t ask her. Maybe someone close will ask about the circumstances of her marriage and her name when the subject comes up. Kamala is a major public figure now. Americans have a right and duty to know everything about her. It’s the price of power in a United States where leaders are expected to sacrificially serve ordinary people — not just the wealthy and the powerful like Trump so often seems to do.
Kamala doesn’t lay claim to a religion, but the Tamil region of India where her relatives live is primarily Hindu. Muslims, Christians, and Jains also live in the area. Her sister, MSNBC commentator Maya Harris, says that she and Kamala were raised in the Baptist and Hindu traditions.
Kamala Harris wrote in her book The Truths We Hold that she attended 23rd Avenue Church of God (a black Christian church) before moving to Canada. No problems there.
As for Trump, he also seems to have an unusual relationship with his spouse. It’s not because she was born two years after he graduated from college. No, it’s not that.
Apparently, Melania doesn’t live in the White House. For some reason no one has the courage to ask why. It’s not clear that Trump lives in the White House, either. He has a hotel across the street. I heard he has an entire floor to himself. No one ever asks him.
Maybe the same deference will be shown to the Harris-Emhoff family when Kamala becomes president in the next year or two. I don’t think it will, nor should it.
Who knows?
Not me.
I’m asking questions, nothing more, because this team of Biden and Harris doesn’t feel right to me. Something doesn’t add-up. Something isn’t making sense.
We know that Israel plans to annex the West Bank at its earliest opportunity. It’s what Haaretz and the Israeli press write about all the time. Perhaps Biden felt that Israel would be more acquiescent to his candidacy with Harris-Emhoff at his side. I just don’t know.
Annexation means possible war with powerful enemies. Is Kamala equipped to carry the fight? I don’t think she’s ready.
Editor’s Note:Within hours after we published this essay Israel announced an agreement with the United Arab Emirates. According to the New York Times, “…the two agreed to ”full normalization of relations” in exchange for Israel suspending annexation of occupied West Bank territory.” Palestinian authorities called the agreement a “sell-out” by the UAE.
Maybe someone will put their finger on why Demmings and Rice didn’t make the cut. Maybe cabinet appointments await them for which they are better suited. It’s speculation. It’s something to watch. Maybe Biden will tell us in the next few days.
Meanwhile, pig Trump snouts about for something nasty to engorge his advantage. Biden and Harris will have to become as meek as lambs and as smart as serpents. They might want to take an oath to keep their wits about them.
A significant portion of the voting public tends to be racist and misogynist — perhaps more now than ever, because of Trump. Kamala is a fighter who isn’t afraid to slash and burn when politics demands it. I wish a more righteous path could bring victory. I believe one exists, but I will never know for sure because my time on Earth is coming to an end.
Kamala made claim that both her parents were active in the American Civil Rights movement. As first-generation immigrant professionals, it’s difficult to understand why they would jeopardize their citizenship doing political acts that might prove disqualifying. In those days, Civil Rights leaders were labeled Communists by FBI Director Hoover. America blocked Communists from citizenship.
I hope Kamala is speaking truth. She might not know what the truth is. Maybe she romanticizes stories parents told. She wouldn’t be the first.
This contest is going to be cast by liberal media as a wrestling match between billionaire Trump and the little people represented by Biden and Harris. We’re in a carnival funhouse of mirrors, politically. Americans, many of them, always seem to feel that the next candidate, the next election will open a door that leads to their extrication from all the lunacy inflicted upon them by the wealthy and the power-hungry.
This election 2020 is not that election. The wealthy, well-connected, and powerful are here to stay into the foreseeable future. As Trump always says, It is the way it is.
Is it really true?
Some are advocating an election boycott — at the very least they plan to ignore the top of the ballot to send a message to the watching world that Americans are fed up by lousy choices and elites who refuse to defend and protect them.
I’m tired of throwing the dice to pick our leaders. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.
Or do we?
Trump is authentic but crazy. Kamala might be phony, but she’s smart as hell and in the prime of life. Which candidate will do the least harm to everything Americans believe in and defend?
I’m not sure anyone knows.
We don’t have much time to learn more about Kamala. We have to ask questions and move fast to understand her as best we can before putting her into a place where everything she says and does will affect our lives for good or ill.
I’ve watched elections come and go. One president in my lifetime was the poorest. He owned a peanut farm. He was the only president who never killed anyone or ordered anyone killed.
Everyone knows the name ”Jimmy” Carter, right?
I met him once. His righteous aura scared me almost to death.
The country spit him out like a bad seed.
Billy Lee
Postscript: 19 August 2020: Acceptance speech by Kamala Harris thrilled me. It was better than expected. I regret some portions of essay above, but my Editors have chosen to embarrass me by not allowing retractions or alterations.They have reasons.
Note from Editorial Board: Our policy is that everything Billy Lee writes be true. Opinions are fine, but fake facts are prohibited. When mistakes are discovered, it is policy that they be fixed ASAP. Meanwhile every issue raised in the essay is to be viewed not as statement of fact but as question begging answers. We agree it’s not enough to be anti-Trump. Hating Trump is not by itself qualifying. Caution advised.
