BEGGING FOR IT

Nikki Haley, UN Ambassador, told the world that North Korea is begging for war. Her statement reminds me of the rape defense that bad men used in decades past at trial before court—she was begging for it, they would always insist.

The victim—always a woman—exercised her constitutional right to dress any way she chose. A prowling lunatic observed her and believed instead that she was advertising a willingness to copulate with a grease-ball, so he attacked.

In today’s United States the grease-ball defense no longer works. Women (and countries) have rights. The courts protect them, most of the time. When they don’t, women have recourse to civil suits.


Nikki Haley is the daughter of Sikh immigrants from Punjab, India. Her mother once owned a clothing company, Exotica International, where Nikki worked as a bookkeeper starting at age 12. She served as governor of South Carolina until she became UN Ambassador in the Trump Administration. Note from the Editorial Board: Haley resigned her UN post on December 31, 2018.

All countries (and women) have the right to defend themselves. No one should have to say it. But the United States has mucked-up the waters of international affairs by waging preemptive wars against communist and socialist countries for the past seventy-five years. It seems like these wars will never end.

The policy of the United States is to undermine any country that espouses communism; it attacks using whatever methods are devised and recommended by the brilliant, depraved minds of our intelligence community. Despite all the evidence, despite all the complaints lodged against the United States before international courts and the United Nations, most Americans refuse to believe it.

The USA birthed its war-policy against collectivism in the early 1900s when the first communist revolutions undermined the noble classes of eastern Europe. The well-connected saw what happened in Russia and Hungary and decided to do something about it. Writers like Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), George Orwell (1984), and Ayn Rand (We the Living) wrote short, easy to read tracts that portrayed life under communism as a personality-destroying nightmare. The public ate it up. 

After World War II, the job of suppression was handed over to our newly formed intelligence agencies who gave the fight its name: the Cold War. With the recent CIA assisted transformations of the Soviet Union and Red China into oligarchies (marking a putative end to the biggest conflicts) other terms have emerged from inside the intelligence community to describe how the USA is continuing to war against what few holdouts remain. The current buzz phrase is strategic strangulation.

Billionaires don’t look at the world in the same way as the disenfranchised and exploited. In the neglected and overlooked far reaches of the world where billionaires don’t live, common people sometimes try to organize themselves by producing wealth cooperatively and sharing it as best they can. Once they attract the attention of the powerful, the powerful send in missionaries and agricultural-aid workers to undermine and disenfranchise their leaders.

If God and food don’t work, they send in assassins. It’s true. Since WWII, the United States has gone to war with one out of four countries. It has overthrown (or co-opted) many states including Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Poland, Iraq, Afghanistan and dozens more.

Eventually, the USA sends in Coca-Cola and other first-line-of-attack companies to overwhelm the nascent economies of the sharers and cooperators. The wealthy move in to buy the arable land and lock up the country; billionaire power-brokers make it their business to bury every way of governance that might threaten their right to administer an economic empire built for one purpose only: to empower their own families and the families of their friends to rule unimpeded into perpetuity.


This billboard appears all over the island of Cuba. It says: BLOCKADE: THE LONGEST GENOCIDE IN HISTORY. It shows a Klansman’s noose strangling the island. Inside the USA intelligence community, it’s called strategic strangulation. Our leaders have enforced the embargo of Cuba for 55 years. Odds are it will never end.

The USA is good at undermining socialist countries. It’s why socialism doesn’t do well. When a communist country like Cuba manages to hold on somehow, they are tormented by embargos, infiltration by agents, sabotage, disinformation, slander, assassinations and so on. Radio Free Whatever is beamed into the targeted country to undermine morale and brainwash listeners with the most seductive psychological warfare techniques in our arsenal. It’s why communist countries seal their borders and jam our broadcasters.

The United States makes sure that no administrator can relax; none can kick back without constantly looking over their shoulder and keeping guard. As long as the privately-owned United States exists, countries of the opposite sex — that is, socialist countries — are going to get blamed for however the rich and powerful choose to hurt them. The better these socialist countries do for their people the bigger the target they become. Their success is their mini-skirt; their low-cut blouse. Obviously, they are begging for war as Madame Haley so eloquently put it.

Blaming the victim is as old as Cain and Abel. It’s as old as history. The bullies win. They put on coats and tails, send their kids to exclusive schools, learn to speak with a different accent, and set themselves apart. They tell wonderful stories about themselves on TV, movies, radio, books, magazines, and the internet until people start to actually believe deep in their hearts that wealthy people are more wonderfully made than themselves or their kids.

The poor and disadvantaged admire their employers, because no one is left to help them understand that they are slaves — fools before a noble class that thinks of them as having no more value than farm animals. They live in the cow-pastures outside the gates of the wealthy. A few unlucky cows get a glimpse from time to time of what has been stolen from them; most of the time they are too incredulous before the view to believe their own eyes.

Today, billionaires are planning as they have for the past seventy years to obliterate the North Koreans. Tens of millions of Koreans will die in the first hours. The North Koreans and their Chinese allies were the first countries to challenge America after WWII. Apparently, our arsenal of atomic weapons didn’t intimidate them. The USA has a long memory.

If we use nuclear weapons in a first strike, no one will live on the peninsula again. That this threat has been floated by our new president (fire and fury like the world has never known) makes it easy to understand what the USA is all about.



Despite denials in the press, America may in fact have neutron bombs in its arsenal which kill people but leave infrastructure intact outside the immediate impact zone. Only bunkers constructed from heavy concrete impregnated with barium sulfate can shield against both neutrons and the gamma ray by-products of collisions between neutrons and the proton-rich substrate of heavy concrete.

High level command bunkers are likely to be built with these materials. Otherwise elements like lead and heavy metals are the barriers of choice against most frequencies of nuclear radiation. But heavy metals tend to be transparent and ineffective against neutron bombardment.

Neutron bombs emit little residual radiation so they don’t contaminate the attack zone. An occupying force can be inserted with little risk of radiation poisoning. It’s possible the USA will use neutron bombs against civilians for the first time if the Koreans continue begging our country to kill them. A follow-on insertion of Marine and Airborne divisions would locate and destroy any surviving command bunkers.

The United States always seems to be first to try diabolical things. We used anthrax against Chinese troops during the Korean war back in the 1950s. Everyone knows about it but us of course. We have short memories when it comes to remembering our own sins like the genocidal Vietnam War and other cruelties such as the war against Iraq and the destabilization of the Middle East.

And no one seems to remember that it was a CIA agent (yes, he was disgruntled and no longer employed, the agency insists) who blew up the first commercial airliner and wiped out the Cuban Olympic fencing team. It was an act of terrorism that didn’t happen when you ask most Americans. Lee Harvey Oswald was also disgruntled and no longer employed, come to think of it.

Speaking of begging for war, is anyone out there begging for peaceThe USA killed two million North Koreans during aerial bombardments approved by President Truman. What’s stopping us from doing it again?

During the first days of the Korean War, the South rounded up 100,000 of its own citizens and summarily executed them, believing that each of their victims might be a leftist sympathizer of the North. The Korean War was an atrocity — which I won’t devote blog space to explain or explore. Click on links, those who want to know more.


South Korea from North Korea’s point of view. A massive China has their back. South Korea’s capital is close to their border — a tempting target. (Click on map to produce full-size view in a new window.)

The point is, we aren’t listening to the North or South Koreans. Most want the peninsula unified. We don’t. Most folks want to live in a safe and fair place where billionaires don’t reduce the average person to poverty. South Korea doesn’t want us to sacrifice millions of its own citizens in a military strike against the North — possibly triggering a nuclear conflagration — to make a point. It’s simple, really.

The only sensible solution is to leave Korea and to assist reunification as best as we can if the sides invite us. We aren’t leaving obviously, because our policy is to topple socialism wherever it takes root.

In the past the USA demonized so many of its enemies that it has become more confusing for most folks to know who the bad guys are this time around. Immigrants to the Americas once labeled native Americans with the pejorative, savages. We exterminated their food supply (buffalos), then their men, women and children.

Right now, no one knows who to trust. With our new president we will never know what the facts are. We will never know for sure who is begging for war, us or them.

Billy Lee


From the EDITORIAL BOARD:

Billy Lee supports private and public ownership of property (a mixed economy) but advocates for internationally enforced limits on personal incomes and estate sizes to reduce the temptations that drive the wealthy to burn down democracy on altars of greed. Read Billy Lee’s essay Capitalism and Income Inequality.

Billy Lee opposes war on humanitarian grounds. During war people get killed and are maimed in huge numbers. It sometimes takes generations for both winners and losers to emerge from the trauma and horrors.

Billy Lee supports the United States during war but in peacetime reserves his constitutional right to pontificate freely.

REASONS

This essay is Billy Lee’s rewrite and revision of a politicaldig.com blogpost written by Ron Delancer, which circulated widely on social media and Facebook.

Billy Lee used it with permission it turns out — the post ends by encouraging readers to copy, paste, and share it on their Facebook timelines — but he revised it extensively, mostly for formatting, but also to make it readable for his thin slice of the web-reading public who, it seems, suffer from, among other things, personal problems related to the understanding and processing of complex ideas.

In defence of Billy Lee (who pays our salaries), he claims that his version is a parody of the original; a satire, really — a controversial satire at that. As parody and satire, his essay is sufficiently differentiated and is not intended to infringe or undermine any copyright protections of the article it satirizes.  

The last ten paragraphs are original work by Billy Lee aloneWe sue people who copy, duplicate, publish, or possess hard-copy of Billy Lee’s original work, so don’t do it. Links that take readers to our site are fine. In fact, we encourage it.

Here is a link to the original article: Poor Suffering Trumpsters

The BillyLeePontificator Editorial Board


A Trump supporter told a Hillary/Obama supporter whose initials are S. M., We suffered for eight years. Now it’s your turn.

S.M. wrote a brilliant response asking how exactly his “friend” suffered under Obama. Our readers will find below Billy Lee’s fractured mess — his version — of S.M.’s reasonable and respectful inquiry.

It is satire, people. Supporters of our nation’s newest president can click on the word satire to learn the definition. It’s fun to learn new words — especially those with more than one syllable.  The Editorial Board


Dear Trump supporter,

I am surprised you would wish suffering upon me. You know, you always hurt me when you are mean and insulting. Of course, it is your right under our Constitution, I suppose. I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody. I really don’t. You seem to hold an “US versus THEM” mentality.

Do you like to fight?

The election is over. Isn’t it time to put the political campaign behind and look for ways to work together as fellow Americans instead of lunatics?

There will never be a president who does everything to everyone’s liking. There are things President Obama (and President Clinton) did that I do not like and on the other hand I can point to  stuff President Bush did that I actually agreed with. Notice I said “some.”  Bush destabilized the Middle East and almost bankrupted our country. I didn’t much care for that part.

If you’re like me you owned a 401K retirement account in 2008. I lost about forty-grand bailing out Wall Street bankers. How did your 401K do? I lost my job when my company was forced to downsize; they couldn’t borrow to make payroll. How did your employer do? Did you keep working?

The United States was hemorrhaging close to a million jobs a month when Obama got elected. A person would have to be strung-out on meth not to remember. You do remember, don’t you? It was an economic free-fall for everyone. Billionaires did OK. That was the good part. For them, anyway. They not only survived, they prospered. 

So let us recall that almost ALL of America was suffering at the beginning of Obama’s presidency. You get that, right?

Of course you do. But I wanted to look back over the last eight years and ask you a few questions. The hayseeds in your pant cuffs and pig manure on your rubber boots tell me that you might not know much about economics, but you do know what pig-shit smells like.

Well, here’s some shit. People said Obama was a Muslim from Africa who lost his birth certificate. He was gonna impose Sharia Law, Take Away Guns, Create Death Panels, Destroy the Economy, Impose Socialism and worse — his wife was a terrorist.

Some evangelicals insisted Obama was the anti-Christ.

Does your wife allow you to track pig poo-poo into your house? I didn’t think so. You have too much class to track yucky-stuff everywhere. So I was wondering: Why do you always say that you suffered so much under the Obama presidency?

I’m going to guess why and ask leading questions, you know, to sort of help you think up some answers. Maybe you’ll do me the kindness of answering a few of them, so that my readers can better understand why you choose to think and act like a moron. Hope you’re ready. Here they come:

Gays and Lesbians can now marry and enjoy the benefits of freedoms long denied. Has this caused your suffering?

When Obama took office, the Dow was $6,626. When he left, it had tripled — to $19,875. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama gave us eighty-two straight months (nearly seven years) of private sector job growth – the longest streak in the history of the United States. Has this caused your suffering?

Think about the economy when Obama took power. The economy was in free-fall. President Obama created 11.3 million new jobs (far more than President Bush). Has this caused your suffering?

Obama dropped the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7%. Has this caused your suffering?

Homelessness among US military veterans dropped by half. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama shut down our overseas black-site prisons, where people were tortured — in some cases to their deaths. Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama started the policy to pay travel expenses for the families of fallen soldiers. Grieving families, for free, can meet the returning planes that carry the remains of their loved ones. Has this caused your suffering?

We landed a rover on Mars and expanded our exploration of the cosmos. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Has this caused your suffering?

The percentage of folks with no health insurance has fallen below 10%; 90% now have it-–an increase of 20 million people. Has this caused your suffering?

People are now treated for pre-existing conditions. Poor people with heart disease or cancer can buy good insurance at discounted rates. Has this caused your suffering?

Insurance premiums increased 58% during the Bush administration. The growth of premiums was far lower during the Obama presidency. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama added billions of dollars to mental health care for our veterans. Has this caused your suffering?

Consumer confidence grew from 38% to 88% during Obama’s tenure. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Has this caused your suffering?

His bi-annual Nuclear Summit helped to convince sixteen countries to dispose of their loose nuclear material, so it could not be acquired by terrorists. Has this caused your suffering?

He saved the USA auto industry. American per-year car sales doubled during his presidency (to nearly 18 million vehicles). Has this caused your suffering?

The deficit as a percentage of the GDP (gross domestic product) fell from about 10% to 3%. Has this caused your suffering?

The total deficit dropped $800 billion. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama preserved the middle class tax cuts. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama banned solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons. Has this caused your suffering?

He enacted credit card reforms so that your interest rates can’t be raised unless you are warned first. Has this caused your suffering?

He outlawed government contractors from discriminating against LGBT persons. Has this caused your suffering?

He doubled Pell Grants. Has this caused your suffering?

Abortion is down. Has this caused your suffering?

Violent crime is down. Has this caused your suffering?

He protected Net Neutrality. Has this caused your suffering?

Obamacare extended the life of the Medicare insurance trust fund (it will be solvent until 2030). Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Has this caused your suffering?

He banned torture. Has this caused your suffering?

He negotiated with Syria to destroy their chemical weapons. Has this caused your suffering?

Solar and wind power usage is at an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?

High school graduation rates rose to 83% – again, an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?

Corporate profits are up. Bankruptcies are down. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama started the process to normalize relations with Cuba. We share embassies now. Has this caused your suffering?

Reliance on foreign oil is at a 40 year low. Has this caused your suffering?

US exports are up 28%. Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama appointed the most diverse cabinet ever. Has this caused your suffering?

He dramatically reduced the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He avoided war with Iran and stopped their nuclear bomb program. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama decimated Al Qaeda and recovered a treasure trove of intelligence during the raid in Pakistan, which he directed and approved to apprehend its legendary leader. Did this cause your suffering?

Enough questions, already. Reasonable people should be able to agree that Obama pulled the USA out of a financial collapse and kept our country safe from attack by foreign terrorists.

Things are not perfect. A few dozen Americans went postal and shot up some places with weapons of war that no civilians should ever own. A lot of children got killed by crazy people.

It seems to me that our newly elected leaders are bonafide lunatics. I heard one psychiatrist say, no; it’s unfair to people who struggle with mental illness to equate their suffering with the behaviors of wicked people. Bad people don’t suffer. They are not debilitated by hurting others. They are energized.

It seems to me that people didn’t suffer during the Obama years; they hated, some of them; there’s a difference. Nasty people posturing as patriots hated on a black man who managed to become president of the most powerful slave-state in human history. He won a Nobel Prize for it; no one believed a country with a reputation for racial-cruelty would ever permit such a thing to happen. But it did.

I was 20 years old before a black man could sit at a counter and drink soda at a drugstore. Because of Barry Obama, most 20 year old kids today don’t remember a time when a white man was president. They were 12 years old and not paying attention, many of them.

Our new president is white and rich. He has over 5,000 times as much money as Obama. It’s one reason why he doesn’t respect our former chief executive. Lack of respect is one reason his family won’t live in the White House.

It’s not the only reason.

If he and his family colluded with foreign crime bosses to take control of our beloved America, well, everyone is going to suffer except those who choose to become collaborators.

When the nightmare ends, maybe years from now, the collaborators will suffer too. We live in the land of the free and the home of the brave — remember it, people — despite the low opinion some of our leaders might have of us. We will find new leaders.

We will find a way to save our shining city on a hill.

Billy Lee

RESURRECTION

So much to say; so little time. And dangerous. Imagine. When my essay is done, God will know for sure, should I get it wrong. What are the chances my essay will get it exactly right? Not good.

Jesus, before he died, said he had much more to share, but the ancient people he messaged couldn’t handle it. We know it’s true. Two thousand years ago people were more ignorant and intolerant than even today. The Holy Spirit, Jesus said, would lead modern people into all truth, but it would be done gently, gracefully, and in God’s good time. 

Jesus said that he came to save the world, not judge it; the last thing he said before crucifixion took him was this: It is accomplished. 

Greek: τετελεστα  (te-TEL-es-ta)


What was accomplished?

I’m not a theologian; I’m a pontificator. It means I have no credentials. Readers will not find a single group of humans anywhere on Earth who will vouch for me.

I know this: people are scared to die. Most feel like Otis Redding, who released his version of the soul classic A Change is Gonna Come during Christmas season 1964:

It’s been too hard living, oh my
And I’m afraid to die.
I don’t know what’s up there
Beyond the clouds.

Jesus sweat blood; he begged God to find another way. It wasn’t to be.

My dear wife, a geriatric nurse, gave care to hundreds of people who died as she comforted them. I’ve watched three people die — my mom and dad and my wife’s dad. Bevy Mae will disagree, but the word that describes death for me is horror.

Death has a finality to it that seems to rob life of all meaning. My dad was a heroic figure. His life as a Navy pilot was an adventure. People loved him. In death, it counted for nothing. Death robbed his life of context. That’s how I experienced it. Total loss. No redeeming virtues; no comfort.

My mother’s death was worse. Her mouth dropped open. When I leaned over to kiss her goodbye, I smelled death. It ruined memory. For a few moments I hated God.

Beverly’s dad collapsed in his downstairs bathroom. We slept upstairs during a visit. He fell on the medical-alert pendant he wore around his neck. It pierced his chest; he bled out before we reached him. My wife spent hours cleaning up her father’s blood. Some of it seeped into the floor boards beyond her reach.

When I looked into the faces of the dead, one thing was sure. People, once they’re gone, don’t come back. Death is final.

Jesus died in a storm during an earthquake. The violence and damage done terrified people. 

One of the military commanders on scene insisted that Jesus must be the “Son of God”, because the geologic violence that occurred during the execution proved it. 

To tamp down hysteria, Pontius Pilate, the governor, blocked access to the grave with a huge rock — which he ordered sealed — and he posted a guard to protect against gawkers and grave robbers. During an inspection a few days later, the tomb was found empty. Linen burial-strips lay in a pile.

Jesus eluded capture but was able to speak to hundreds of people, including members of his family. His brother, James, wrote a short, adulatory book about him, which was included in the canon of the New Testament many years later. In it he cautioned people to not doubt — something he did during his brother’s life. Until the resurrection, he didn’t know what to think about his controversial sibling.

Pastors sometimes say that people who don’t believe in the resurrection are not really Christians. The Bible says that all who call on the name of the LORD will be saved, so what difference does it make?

Jesus said it is accomplished before his resurrection took place — days before. It seems  impossible for a modern person to believe that a dead person is able to be brought back to life by any process anyone can imagine.

What amazes me is that folks don’t believe the simple things Jesus said, which are counter-intuitive, perhaps, but easily confirmed by anyone who chooses to live life outside their comfort zone.

Jesus said that rich people don’t go to heaven, for example, unless God arranges a miraculous intervention. One might think Christians would be shedding their money like dead skin. Yet some pastors preach that prosperity and wealth are an indicator of God’s favor for anyone who makes a confession of faith.  

A pastor’s wife once told me she had never visited anyone in prison. Jesus advised people to visit not only prisoners, but the sick and the shunned, the poor and disabled — even the lowest rung of people in society — to show God’s love by sharing their lives; by being with those who are beat down by times of trouble. Who does this?

I’ve met Christians who home-school their kids and live in gated, sometimes all-white neighborhoods where they wall themselves off like nuns in a convent; they do mission trips, yes — highly organized and scheduled; usually once each year for a week to ten days. It doesn’t seem to be either right or enough, at least to me.

Christ said that men who look at women with lust are adulterers; the punishment for some forms of adultery during Bible times was death.

It’s not unusual to hear Christian men complain that they are trapped in a web of pornography, which some feel helpless to resist. How can anyone obey Jesus and honor his suffering, they reason, while they themselves spend hours each day committing adultery online, or however they manage it?

I can go on. The list is endless. Christians want to be good, but they can’t.

No one avoids guilt; no one sidesteps shame. People seem to contort their minds to think pretty much whatever they want. The easy stuff they ignore, when it’s inconvenient. The difficult stuff — like grounding their faith in the resurrection of Christ Jesus — they take on without effort, because it doesn’t involve suffering to tell other “believers” that they believe it too. Suffering is what everyone is trying to avoid.

Jesus bled-out on a cross; I won’t have to, they imagine. But Jesus said that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we have no life in us. What did he mean by it?

The Bible says most of his followers deserted him after he said it. But Matthew — maybe the most prominent disciple; the New Testament begins with his tract — quoted Jesus to say that followers would find in Him rest for their souls.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light, Jesus said.  

Folks whose heads are above water — who once suffocated in the quicksand of sin and were rescued — know exactly what Jesus meant. To live, they sometimes find themselves suffering to do what’s right. It’s inconvenient, but it leads to a better way of being. Poverty, not wealth, is a sign of the cross. It is a seal that binds us to Christ and his destiny.

Suffering along side of Christ, even in the midst of our own self-inflicted carnage, is a path that can lead to resurrection; to a life that lasts; to a life that has meaning. Suffering to help set the world right — to set ourselves right — can be a reminder of God’s promise to rescue us; to place us into a life that will last; into a place Jesus called Paradise

Folks who hold fast to the cross of Jesus; who drink His blood; who share His agony are never alone. Jesus said he came to save his own from the ruin that comes from dying evil. It’s a promise He doesn’t break. All other paths lead not only to suffering, but separation from God.

Loving people; aligning our aspirations with Christ’s destiny — which is to love and rescue others; to stand ready to die to ourselves, should it ever become necessary — are among the things Jesus might have meant when he said: 

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to God except through me.

Billy Lee

There’s a time I would go to my brother, oh my.
I asked my brother, ”Will you help me please?”, oh my oh my.
He turned me down and then I ask my dear mother, oh.
I said ”Mother!”
I said ”Mother! I’m down on my knees.”
            ————————
So tired, so tired of standing by myself
And standing up alone.
A change has gotta come.
 
(excerpts by Otis Redding)
 
 .

BAD THINGS

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19: 33-34

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.
1 Corinthians 14: 1

Dad could tell the future. He was a Navy pilot who took off and landed on aircraft carriers, sometimes at night. His time to defend America was long ago. Aircraft carriers were then new to war, and pilots crashed their planes and helicopters a lot. Until the kinks got worked out over a period of many years, the Navy lost about one out of four pilots to mishaps at sea.

Dad predicted a number of crashes. Soon the pilots in his squadron wouldn’t fly if he got a “bad feeling.” His commanders respected him. Over time, good fitness reports and promotions led him to command an anti-submarine, jet-helicopter squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Afterward, the Navy rated his squadron (HS-1) the safest combat aviation group on America’s east coast. Not one man was lost during his command.

Dad went with his feelings; when he got that “bad feeling”, he always flew the mission himself, or led it, rather than risk the lives of his men. Dad rose rapidly in the ranks, holding many important positions, not only in the Navy but also at the NSA (National Security Agency). Near the end of his career, a president appointed him to lead another intelligence agency not known to the public.

Navy fliers I talked with who knew dad said he was the best pilot in the United States Navy. He could fly anything under any conditions. Navy officers don’t lie. It’s against their Code of Conduct. Of course, I believed every word.

My dad was fearless to the very end of his ninety-one years of life. He once ate a half pound of spoiled cheese, because it was a gift, and he refused to embarrass the giver. The cheese smelled the way cheese smells when it has been ripened at the bottom of an army latrine; I almost threw up from the stench, but dad gulped it down like porterhouse steak. He grabbed the cheese with both hands, tore it in half, and inhaled a deep breath to savor the aroma. I was amazed that the rancid mess didn’t instantly kill him.

Today, many people seem to be having apocalyptic fears. People I don’t know well, who seem normal, have told me about vivid dreams they have had about good and bad things. Sometimes their visions trouble them. The thought has crossed my mind that a lot of folks are teetering on the edge of insanity. It’s sad and troubling.

The election added a lot of stress to people’s lives, did it not?  Election tampering by foreign intelligence agencies ran rampant and was obvious to anyone who was paying attention. The United States has an unfortunate reputation for election tampering in other countries, which goes back many decades; our recent election seemed to give other countries a golden opportunity for pay-back, which some inflicted brazenly — perhaps as a warning for us to back-off; to stand-down. Who knows?

Anyway, the election is done; Trump won; Hillary won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. In the countryside of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan (among other states) Trump won by huge margins never before seen in the free world, ever. His biggest leads came in districts with electronic voting machines. These margins overwhelmed the leads racked up by Democrats in urban areas.

It was a strange election that lasted a very long time. Many “unprecedented” things happened during the contest that no one in America has ever experienced before. Is it any wonder that some people feel unhinged by an outcome that makes no statistical sense; by an outcome no one saw coming?

Republicans now control the entire federal government; they control enough state governments to enable easy passage of amendments to the Constitution, should the GOP decide to change America in that way.

Some people want to know: what’s coming next; what sudden shocks might rock their world?

How would I know?

Yes, I took the time to compile a list of bad things that could happen. Yes, it may have been a waste of time; maybe my effort might have been better spent helping the poor.


(FILES): These recent file photos show the ten Republican presidential candidates who will appear August 6, 2016 on Fox News for the first US presidential debate of the 2016 Republican primary cycle. Top row from left: Billionaire real-estate tycoon Donald Trump; former Florida governor Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker; Florida Senator Marco Rubio; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Bottom row from left: Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Kentucky Senator Rand Paul; Texas Senator Ted Cruz; New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; and Ohio Governor John Kasich. AFP PHOTO / Files
With GOP leaders like these, what things could possibly go bad?

It’s possible that none of the bad things in the list below will happen. Maybe some will. My contribution to understanding the future is simply to point out things that have a chance of happening, which people may not have considered, or yet read about, or even shared (if they have thought about them).

My blog is read by not very many people; stilI, I felt compelled to write these “heads-up” warnings to help any curious humans (or bots) who might accidentally stumble onto my essay; to open the eyes of the few and the lucky, so that they might better understand what’s coming next; to inoculate some of them — especially the people I love — against the despair that can overwhelm any one of us when we find ourselves ambushed by the bad things in our future.

So here is my list of BAD THINGS. I might add to it from time to time if my imagination runs amok, or freaked-out people tell me scary stuff.

Here it is:

— The First Family refuses to live in the White House.

— Blacks and women start disappearing from news shows, replaced by white men.

— Athletes and entertainers step forward to confess: yes, they voted for Trump.

— Evidence emerges: The birth certificate was faked. Congress starts an investigation.

— The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is overturned.

— The military draft of young people is resurrected.

— The USA drops a neutron bomb on a city for the very first time.

— The United Nations disbands.

— Russia reestablishes its control over Eastern Europe.

— The Philippines makes a military alliance with China.

— Donald Trump resigns.

— Mike Pence becomes president.

— A hot year kills hundreds of millions.

— Many popular foods become unavailable.

— The president’s wife reveals that he is gay.

— The Mueller investigators reveal that the new president is an agent of the Russian government — hand-picked by Paul Manafort.

— A major volcanic eruption inside the USA kills hundreds of thousands.

— The Post Office is privatized.

— The Veterans Administration is privatized.

— Social Security is privatized.

— Medicare is privatized.

— Prisons are privatized.

— Public education is privatized.

— Tax deductions are eliminated, raising taxes on the poor and middle-class.

— Inheritance taxes are eliminated, locking-in a permanent aristocracy.

Unlawful assembly is redefined: three or more unrelated people who gather in a public space for any purpose other than private discourse shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, unless they have in their possession a permit signed by the president of the United States.

— A 1954 law denying tax exemptions to churches who endorse politicians is repealed.

— Church attendance plummets.

— Charitable giving plummets.

— Inflation rises to 22% per year.

— The banking system collapses.

— Stock markets close.

— Congress declares misdemeanor unlawful assembly a felony.

— The WALL is retooled to restrain fleeing Americans.

— The Constitution is amended to eliminate all forms of naturalization to block any pathway to citizenship for children bred by foreigners. 

— An insect species is destroyed by a gene-driver released from an unregulated lab.

— Chipmunks are rendered extinct by a second gene-driver accident.

— Internet access is placed under federal regulation.

SCOTUS hands over abortion policy to the states.

— SCOTUS rules that businesses have a constitutional right to choose who can buy their products and services, and who cannot.

— State governments add lithium to city water supplies to raise the spirits of unhappy citizens.

— Congress mandates that electronic nano-chips be injected into the buttocks of every person to help ICE track, identify, and differentiate people’s movements and immigration status.

— Congress declares that felony unlawful assembly is ”from this time forward” a capital offense.

— The 2020 election is postponed until ”we can figure out just what the hell is going on.”

— GOP controlled state legislators amend the constitution to fight terrorism; they rescind the Bill of Rights.

Cruel and unusual punishment replaces baseball as our country’s most popular spectator sport.

Selfies by folks jumping off bridges and skyscrapers go viral on social media.

 Billy Lee

TRUMP

Statement: The Billy Lee Pontificator Editorial Board

This essay is a collection of Facebook rants that Billy Lee wrote and later deleted, because he is a coward and feared readers might turn on him; even stone him to death. Billy Lee deleted his tantrums from Facebook, yes, but he copied and pasted them into what he thought was a secret file on his blog site.

Billy Lee has no secret files; not any he can hide from us, anyway — his Editorial Board.  Nuh uh…No way…. We got to reading his ”secret” files the other day, and guess what? His Trump file was pretty good.  

We decided to tell Billy Lee to stand up; to act like a lion, not the mouse he so often seems to be. Publish this stuff, we told him. Even Billy Lee Junior and Fannie Jeane agreed. They talked him into it. They really did. It was them two, not us.

So here goes: Billy Lee said we could publish his warnings about the orange-man — who he fears will destroy the country we love if he doesn’t make some changes to his deplorable personality. Billy Lee insisted that we encrypt the name of ”orange-man” to protect our site from harassment by Trump trolls and bots. No problem.

The Editorial Board


Note: On September 18, 2016 Billy Lee removed the encryption we used to hide his essay from web search-engine spiders. He told us that he wants to stand (or maybe crash and burn) on the words he wrote. NO FEAR!  he choked between bouts of episodic projectile vomiting. NO FEAR!

Note: On November 9 (11-9) news outlets declared Trump the winner of the 2016 presidential election. We wish our new president the very best. We pray that he will reassure all Americans that he loves them and will serve with the humility and respect for human rights and freedoms that his high calling demands. One way to start is to apologize to the civilians (non-politicians) he insulted and falsely accused of crimes and human failings during his campaign.
The Editorial Board


Trump

Ted Cruz of Texas took many evangelicals away from Trump. For this, we must thank him for his courage. His sacrificial act at the Republican National Convention brought wrath from the Trump goons, but he was trying to save America from making the worst mistake in our history. God is good.


Editors Note: (November 19, 2016) Exit polls now show that Trump received the largest percentage of evangelical votes, ever. 81% voted for him; Hillary Clinton received 16%.


ted-cruz
Senator Ted Cruz says he is a follower of Jesus. A Trump surrogate called Cruz a ”Zika virus.” Cruz refused to endorse the GOP presidential candidate because the orange-man slimed his wife, among other insults.

A top Trump super Pac leader called Senator Ted Cruz a Zika virus. The GOP doesn’t want him. Good riddance to the Zika virus. The rhetoric reminds me of Hitler: the way he painted his detractors.


Editors Note:  On Friday September 23, Cruz tweeted that he would vote for Trump to honor a promise he made before the GOP convention to support the nominee; Hillary Clinton was too liberal. His ”non-endorsement” lasted two months; it ended two days before the first presidential debate. The Pontificator endorsed Hillary Clinton on February 10, 2016. 


I’m feeling good vibes about America tonight. Our neighborhood sounds like the happiest war zone anyone could ever imagine. [from a July 4th Facebook entry. The Editors]

God is healing our country, apparently, even when we can’t see it, some of us.

All we have to do is love and forgive. The rest is easy. Be confident and do what’s right. That’s the goal for summer and fall and into the elections. All else is up to God, whose angels protect us twenty-four seven.

Ted Cruz, you are a beautiful man. Thank you for what you said and did at the GOP cross-burning. They called it a convention, but you knew better. 2,500 delegates showed up; 18 were black — less than one percent.  

Nobody in leadership attended; not the Bush family; not the McCain’s; nor the Romney’s — not anyone of integrity, good will, and national stature. It took bravery, Mr. Cruz, and you showed it. May God bless and protect you.

My take away is this: these are very sad days for Trump and his family. He loves America, he says, but he’s lived inside a bubble of privilege his entire life. He doesn’t understand which way the wind blows, and he seems dangerously close to a heart attack every time he speaks. (He’s 70 years old.)

Despite his words, which some take to be patriotic, he and his friends plan to wreck America (much like Bush W. almost did) by making the country a hostile, unfriendly place for people who want to use the freedom granted by its Constitution to warn us of our follies.

The people who support Trump, many of them, behave on the internet like vicious animals (apologies to my furry friends in the animal kingdom). Team Trump seems to carry a lot of race-hate in their hearts as well as hatred for my gal, Hillary, who I love. Log onto the Internet and go to their Twitter feeds, anyone who doesn’t believe it. Hillary Clinton is Mother Teresa compared to many of them.


Editor’s note:  On January 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report (click this link), which concluded that agents of Russian intelligence created bots on social media to intimidate and suppress Hillary Clinton supporters. Billy Lee received threats on Twitter from a few of them.


Despite all this hate, many Christian pastors and opinion leaders have jumped on board the Trump train — if you ask them privately, which I have. It disturbs me to hear pastors defend Trump; they say he ”accepted Christ” a few months (or years) ago; yes, he behaves badly; we must give him the benefit of every doubt — he’s a ”baby Christian” after all; he needs time to grow.


gott-mit-uns-german-belt-buckle


It reminds me of the excuses religious leaders gave Hitler, who not only claimed to be a Christian tasked to carry out God’s Holy Will but encouraged his minions to stamp the words, “Gott mit uns” on their military-issued belt-buckles.

God is with us, Team Hitler chanted as pastors and congregants alike took the world to war and caused the deaths of nearly 100 million people in a futile and absurd quest to exterminate the progeny of ”those people” they blamed for the Crucifixion of Christ. To add context, the crucifixion was a state-execution by the Roman Empire of a rogue rabbi carried out over two-thousand years ago.

Today the Jesus-haters are Muslims, they tell us. We are supposed to elect a candidate who says he will exterminate them — the really bad ones anyway plus their families — at least for right now.  Later … well … we’ll see about that — after we figure out just what the hell is going on.

What is going on — what’s wrong with America — Is this: our elites aren’t carrying their weight; they aren’t supporting the people in the countries that protect them. They are — many of them — decadent, immoral, insensitive, and entitled.

Trump is a billionaire. No matter how well-intentioned, he is the last person we should pick to lead our country.

On the RNC twitter feed, a trumper challenged me for posting the following:

A few minutes ago on Fox News Congressman Darrell Issa said Hillary was 72 years old. She is 68; Trump is 70. Turn FOX NEWS off.”

The emotions of the haters are high right now. It’s probably a good time to get off the Internet and let these lunatics implode on their own. I’m a coward anyway. Until today, I didn’t have the guts to challenge them. I was too scared.

I must have blocked at least 100 tweeters so I could follow the Democratic convention on Twitter without seeing grotesque images and reading threats in the feeds.


[As of the day of this posting, Billy Lee has blocked over 3,000 Trump lunatics.  The Editorial Board]


The amazing part for me was to learn that Twitter was also blocking crazies. What I blocked were trumper-nazis who were somehow getting by the censors.

What I learned is that it doesn’t matter if Trump is good or bad. Who knows? — he might be a Christ follower — some Christian leaders say he is. What matters is that he and his movement are unleashing the dogs of war on the American people. These dogs stalk the Internet; they worship guns; some have tens-of-thousands of followers.

They say vicious things; they make veiled threats and not so veiled threats. They post disgusting images. They rally around Trump with confederate and American flags; they carry guns; they ride hogs and choppers. They’ve got it all figured out.

The cure for what’s wrong is violence, they believe. They embrace the cure. They worship cruelty. They behave like bullies. They take no prisoners. They show no mercy — at least on Twitter.

In the real world outside Twitter they might be little-old-ladies in combat boots texting away on iPads inside nursing homes for all I know, but I block them anyway and pray that their hero never makes it to the White House.


lock-her-up-at-2016-gop-republican-convention
Trump supporters worked themselves into a frenzy at the GOP convention. They chanted, ”Lock her up! Lock her up!”  They never explained why.

After the GOP convention, I felt more confident he won’t win.  

Lock her up! Lock her up! his delegates chanted. It sounded to me like, Crucify her! Crucify her!

Only haters scream words like these. Sometimes they get their way. Haters locked up Christ Jesus and killed him, right? Some people said, he did nothing wrong. Some said, he loved others. He healed people. He lived a perfect life.

To paraphrase Hillary Clinton: What difference did it make?  Right now, I’m not sure about the results of the approaching election. Some polls show that Trump will be president.

The Russian mafia is working with the GOP to take down Hillary, some people in the intelligence community report. It’s a nightmare scenario.

During a debate last year, Trump explicitly said that he’d met Putin while the two of them sat backstage waiting to appear on 60 Minutes.

”I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes; we were stablemates,” Trump said at the time.

Trump insisted this summer that he doesn’t know Putin. He’s never met him.

Trump married two women from communist countries — his first wife, Ivana and his current wife, Melania. The one non-communist he married, Marla Maples, bore him a child out of wed-lock. He later married her.

Marla and Donald divorced before a sunset-clause in their prenuptial agreement expired. Marla got nothing — a reported 2 million dollars out of the many thousands-of-millions Trump had accumulated.

Has anyone visited Trump Twitter feeds to see who his acolytes are?  I did.  I saw thousands of bots with 5 followers and 25 tweets flooding feeds with pro-Trump, anti-Hillary nonsense. It was annoying and scary.

I also found Trump worshippers, some with tens-of-thousands of followers. I blocked the worst of them — the ones with pornographic images of Hillary, or assault weapons, or threatening messages in their bios.

People are afraid of Trump and his rabid cult of followers; he promises to enable cops to become even more aggressive than some already are.

Is it any wonder that the Donald has zero-percent support among black citizens who must endure a militarized police-state that the USA has engineered to suppress righteous rage?



People are afraid to advocate for what they know in their hearts is right, because GOP thugs scare them. Most white Americans are not accustomed to being scared; to experiencing fear; they aren’t in the habit of self-censorship to protect the people they love (except at work, where disagreements with owners can cost folks their jobs).

We can’t let fear stop us from speaking out. We can’t let Trump thugs terrorize us into silence — not while we still have a chance, no matter how slim, to stop them. 

Here’ something to remember:

After the Russians captured Hitler (to be historically accurate, no one ever claimed responsibility for finding him), German citizens said they knew nothing about concentration camps; they were shocked when the allies forced them to walk through the slave-labor camps where six million people toiled and died, many by poison gas and immolation.

After Trump is elected, we won’t hear about the bad things that are happening in our country. It isn’t going to be on television. People are going to disappear, and we won’t know why or how.

Trump will muzzle the press (some are saying that his surrogates already have), but we won’t know. A nation that can’t figure out FOX NEWS is not going to understand sophisticated attacks against democracy by people who are truly evil.

It’s why we have to speak up and vote. We have a chance to stop the rise of fascism in America. We have to take the chance we still have.

Tony Schwartz wrote Trump’s Art of the Deal.  He spent 18 months at Trump’s side following him around to listen to conversations, phone calls, and observe relationships. He wrote the book; Trump signed it. Trump and Schwartz split the money 50/50.

Like Trump, Schwartz is a ”tweeter” who I started following recently.


tony-schwartz-art-of-the-deal-2
Tony Schwartz made millions from the sale of the book he wrote for Trump: The Art of the Deal. He is warning voters that Donald is a sociopath.

Schwartz now says: I genuinely believe that if Trump wins and gets the nuclear codes there is an excellent possibility it will lead to the end of civilization.

Schwartz says he wishes he titled his book, The Sociopath.

What bothers me is that people who have read Art of the Deal believe they know Trump. The writer says no — they read a book designed to sell a lot of copies and make money, which a ghost writer penned. (The writer was Schwartz himself.) 

Tony Schwartz didn’t seem to believe that Trump would run for president someday. He now regrets the bad thing he did for money.

It’s too late. But it’s good that he is sorry.

Can I spend a few moments discussing the race riots that occurred in Milwaukee this summer? Milwaukee is relevent to this essay. 

I spent four weeks in 1974 living within the limits of this Wisconsin city. Being a Navy kid, I had spent time in many places both inside the USA and outside — in Europe and Asia. I remember thinking at the time that Milwaukee was the most racist place I’d ever seen. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t object.

Here are some reasons:

In 1974 socialist Germans who hated minorities ran the city. They would have loved their fellow German, Donald Trump, if they knew him, which is possible  because he was the son of Fred Trump, the German billionaire developer who built 27,000 segregated rental units in Queens NYC and was rumored to be the richest American. His son — in his late twenties at the time — was already wealthy and making a name for himself in Manhattan.

The people I worked for in Milwaukee told me that the police were able to prevent blacks from coming into the white areas by using traffic stops. I never saw a black person while I was there. But I heard a lot of racist talk from whites.

Blacks made nearly half the city’s population.  I heard white people talk about how bad they (the blacks) were, but I never saw any in the month I lived and worked in Milwaukee. Remember: 1974 was six years after an assassin murdered Martin Luther King and  ten years after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. Segregation was illegal.

Today — 43 years after — only one city in America has more poor or more homeless than Milwaukee. It doesn’t shock me that the city experienced race-war this summer. It doesn’t surprise me that the city crushed the insurrection and that we no longer remember it, most of us.

America’s beer supply remains safe and sound. 

I am afraid for the black people in Milwaukee, because as bad as the national-socialists mistreated minorities when I visited, the current leadership demonstrated this summer that they are capable of worse. 

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency will reduce risk to racist supporters who hope to suppress minorities. 

Like I said earlier, I’ve been on Twitter. I’ve read the feeds. Under the right leadership, a genocide is possible. Some would say we have a slow-burning genocide unfolding right now.

Trump is unleashing the dogs of war; dogs who destroy civilizations. With almost three months to go, how will anyone patch the breach in the dam that holds back barbarians armed to the teeth with weapons of war? Go to any gun range and watch Americans practice. 

Wake up. Everyone. Take a stand now. It will be impossible to make a difference once we are standing behind razor wire waiting for our turn in microwave ovens. These monsters are not going to stop with blacks.

They will move on to the journalists and people they think are radicals. Eventually, they’ll burn the unfit, the retarded, the disadvantaged and of course, the Muslims.

Then they’ll show their true colors: they’ll go after the Jews; people with birth defects; autism; bad breath; body odor; torn jeans; the list of defects and moral failings that bother them will get longer, not shorter.

Somewhere along the line, the attacks on Christians will begin. Some say the attacks have already started. The take-downs of Ted Cruz and John Kasich were the first of many to come; operatives will sprinkle the suppression of Christians into the mix like salt; no one will notice — not until it’s too late to do anything about it.

We’ve seen this movie before. It is the natural course of empires like Germany, Japan, Russia, ancient Egypt, Persia; and of course, ancient Rome — the list is long. We in America will be living in it soon if we don’t vote to stop it.

A billionaire candidate staffed by paranoids to advise him doesn’t need GOP money; he doesn’t need anyone’s approval; he doesn’t need to buy television time.

He has access to communication networks involving AM radio stations, private mailers, internet ads, and e-mailers to spread whatever conspiratorial excrement he chooses to dispel; he can easily discredit and defame reasonable people who might dare to defend our country and the shared values enshrined by our constitution.


evan-mcmullin-ex-cia-candidate-for-president-2016
Evan McMullin, ex-CIA official and presidential candidate.

Fox News, OAN, and Rush Limbaugh among others in this network have driven their stupid listeners into a psychosis of evil. It’s disturbing; I would say it’s terrifying. Even our CIA worries.

Evan McMullin, former CIA officer who is running for president, told Thomas Roberts of MSNBC that providing security briefings to Trump …is a threat to [national security], because he has been co-opted by Vladimir Putin, he is aligned with Vladimir Putin; he would not be able to secure a security clearance at even the lowest levels…he doesn’t know the first thing about fighting terrorism…

David Preiss, former longtime CIA briefer to the presidential candidates, told Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC that after the 2000 election the CIA continued briefings to Al Gore who they believed won, and suspended briefings to George W. Bush until a few weeks later when the Supreme Court stopped the election-law mandated recount of votes in Florida to give the presidency to Bush who CIA analysts believed was the loser.

If the CIA was correct about the election, it must have irritated its directors when Bush falsely claimed that the CIA told his staffers that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction — a lie that some believe began the unraveling of our country. The Great Recession that followed the stolen election and illegal war wiped out one-third of the accumulated wealth of the middle-class; you know, folks like me and my life-partner Bevy Mae.

I hope our readers will have the common sense to vote against Republicans at every level of government so we can set things right.

This summer in Dimondale, Michigan Trump told white confederate militia members from nearby Charlotte about black people. Speaking directly to blacks, none in the audience, he said: You live in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs. What the hell do you have to lose?

The answer is: everything. The New York Times reported a few weeks later that Trump might be 650 million dollars in debt. No one really knows. Could they be right?  If true, it means that every black person in the USA has a higher net worth than the Donald.

Aren’t folks tired of predators running everything, ruining everything, wrecking everything, taking everything, and playing everyone?

As our Editorial staff has advocated for two years now, the United States must establish an internationally enforced limit to personal incomes and estate sizes — for the simple reason that unlimited wealth destroys self-governance, democracy, and the benefits of civilization which ordinary citizens want and deserve.


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Billy Lee believes incomes and estates should be limited to some reasonable ratio of the minimum wage. The reason: to prevent legalized looting of our institutions. People could easily buy expensive homes and remain well within the limits proposed by the Pontificator. The Editorial Board

The limits can be very high and do no harm. My suggestion has been to link the minimum wage to a maximum income and estate size; my recommendation is 1,000 to one for income and 20,000 to one for estate size; we’re talking about an estimated $20 million per year income limit; $400 million maximum estate sizes; inheritances might be limited to $5 million per inheritor.

Limits like these will encourage entrepreneurs but discourage looting like the kind we see going on in our financial sector. During the Bush administration a director of one of the stock exchanges drew an annual salary of $150 million. That’s crazy wicked.

Limits prevent isolated individuals who lack supporters from unduly influencing elections. Wealthy men like Trump won’t be able to get off the ground their drive-for-ultimate-power unless many other (hopefully reasonable) people get behind them at the start. Healthy democracies don’t need a Lone Ranger to rescue them.

The process we are witnessing now — where fawners and sycophants leap on board the choo-choo train after it has already left the station — shouldn’t happen in a democracy like ours. The stakes are too high.

The apparent nepotism of the Trump campaign demeans and insults the brave and free people of the most exciting country on Earth — the one country where ordinary people govern themselves; where the wealthy and the powerful don’t rule over us until we are able to thoroughly vet them; until they earn our consent by becoming transparent under scrutiny.  

Otherwise, it’s not right. We all know it.

Possession of wealth beyond certain agreed-upon, international norms should be a felony enforced by national and international courts. People who exceed limits could be given one (or possibly two) grace-years to turn over the excessive portion of their wealth to charities or the government — otherwise they spend a year in prison while the courts trim their assets to the lawful limits.

No one runs for public office after a lifetime of plundering and taking until they divest themselves to the lawful limits. 

How can anyone trust someone to hold high office who says they have accumulated 14,000 piles of a million dollars each? The person is either a liar or they aren’t. If they are telling the truth, someone should be asking, how does a person accumulate that much money without cheating people; without hoarding; without recognizing the needs of the poor and miserable who are all around; who refuses to help by sharing what they plundered?

The truth is — for anyone who has the courage to face it — behind every great fortune is a dark secret; sometimes many dark secrets. It’s true. Folks can believe it, or not.

How can anyone who understands the difference between right and wrong even consider casting a vote for the current GOP candidate? How heartless are some Americans?  Very, according to some polls. Yes, more than a few people are uninformed. So what? Ignorance is not an excuse. For those who don’t have time to investigate the candidates, I do. Take my word for it.

We are on the precipice of bad things. Unimaginable things. Men like Trump get worse after victory, not better. People are going to die. Seriously. Many of the people who support this sicko are gun nuts who are still fighting the Civil War. Consider the movement behind the Donald when making the decision to participate, to vote, and who to vote for.

Who leads America is a serious issue. Election is no joke. People who don’t vote share the blame if we get a bad result. We can’t elect men who cheat on their wives; who hate minorities; trash the environment; hunt endangered animals; lie compulsively; build casinos; fleece contractors; steal, cheat, and take revenge on anyone who dares to refuse to worship them and the ground they walk on.

We can’t elect men who are unable to tell truth from fiction; who won’t apologize to people they’ve hurt; who spread preposterous conspiracy theories; who destroy people they think are disloyal to their self-centered vision. We just can’t.

The candidate’s children stand to inherit windfalls — if they stay on message; if they hang on to their seats on his train. We are not going to hear dire warnings from them — though they know better than anyone what a hairball he is.

Billy Lee

SATAN SURRENDER

 


From the New York Times:

For those puzzled about why so many evangelical leaders were willing to endorse Donald J. Trump, the most openly irreligious major-party presidential candidate in our history, Jerry Falwell Jr. provided the answer in his singularly graceless speech at the Republican National Convention:

”Mr. Trump has added a plank to this party’s platform to repeal I.R.S. rules sponsored by Lyndon Johnson in 1954 barring churches and nonprofits from expressing political free speech.”

Mr. Falwell assured his audience, ”Trust me, the repeal of the Johnson Amendment will create a huge revolution for conservative Christians and for free speech.”

Kevin Baker, New York Times Editorial, Living in L.B.J.’s America, August 28, 2016.


Kevin Baker is a writer for the New York Times and a recipient  of the James Fenimore Cooper Prize

Before anyone starts to read this essay, which was inspired by Kevin Baker’s editorial, let me offer a controversial truth, which could dissuade some people from reading further. Why waste time with truths that are disagreeable? some might be thinking.

Here it is: The United States is the one country on Earth where the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is forbidden by law to conduct operations against civilians inside its borders. It’s the reason controversial people come here. The USA is a safe place for dissidents. The concept of freedom (whatever that is) has nothing to do with it.

In other countries, men and women who have run afoul of USA strategic objectives have sometimes disappeared. Enough said.

It’s a violation of US law to discuss the CIA and its associations with American institutions. I can’t be more specific other than to say that the CIA, like other super-sized organizations, must train and equip, house and deploy hundreds-of-thousands of people (the actual number is classified) to work for, with, or under its guidance. It’s a huge undertaking.

The CIA is TEAM USA. It’s big, and it’s complicated. It’s on our side. Some good people work there. Some of them would like to have more say about what happens here in America where we live. Enough said.

If you are still reading, let me get on with it.

Of the 195 countries on Earth, only 75 do not have intelligence agencies. Of the 120 or so countries that do, 15 to 20 conduct operations extensive enough to influence the policies of their adversaries and, yes, their allies. Influencing public opinion is a big part of what these two dozen intelligence services do — especially when conducting operations in competing democracies.

With most foreign intelligence agencies the United States keeps certain agreements that delineate the boundaries of acceptable conduct. Russian intelligence agents don’t assassinate our civilians, nor we theirs — things like that. The details of the agreements differ depending on the country.

The “Temple” or “Church” or “Mosque” — call it whatever — was always the primary institution used by intelligence services in the past to influence public opinion and monitor people’s behavior. Hundreds of books and histories have been written about it. Those who don’t believe, read a book; learn something.

I don’t want my essay to go off the rails, but let me remind readers about the Divine Right of Kings doctrine, the institution of confessionals, the Inquisition, and secret monastic orders imbedded in populations, and on and so on. These intelligence structures and systems existed in the past and persist in most major religions and denominations to this day.


Martin Luther King mug shot in Birmingham Jail in 1963 2
This is what the real Divine Right of Kings looks like. Martin Luther King Jr., Baptist Pastor, won the Nobel Peace Prize almost one year after Birmingham police took this mugshot in 1963 and jailed him. The kings who receive divine missions from God don’t always look like some Christians think they should. King called on the USA to repent of its sins involving segregation and racism. Like all prophets of God, haters killed him; his call remains unanswered to this day.

In the past, each country had its own state-sponsored religion. In many parts of the world state religions are still encouraged and supported.

In the United States, people fought a revolution to get religion out of government; it was an institution that the founders thought would rot our new republic from within by gutting the values of freedom-of-thought and speech for non-enlightened extremists whose purpose was earthly power, not the salvation of souls.

In the 1950s, a form of right-wing extremism got a grip on the American public that was truly frightening. (Remember McCarthyism?) It cloaked itself in the Constitution and the Bible. Its stated purpose was to defeat Communism, which it portrayed as godless and authoritarian.

What the leaders of the John Birch Society and other like-minded extremists wanted most was the political power to turn back trends that they believed would unravel the social order — trends like pop music (rock and roll), integration of the races, the rise of unions, voting rights for minorities, and things like that.

It’s why Lyndon Johnson, a powerful liberal Senator from Texas, tacked an amendment on a bill in 1954, when Republican Eisenhower was president and the GOP controlled Congress. Representative government would be ill-advised to permit charitable groups like churches to lobby for political candidates by spending their flock’s flood of tax-deductible money on elections.  

If folks want to hear a reason why this separation of church and state is important, look to media to see what has happened there. Many of our news-outlets are owned and operated by foreign nationals, for example.

In those few media outlets where foreign nationals (some dual-citizens) are not owners, the rest are billionaires; you know, the kind of people who own football teams.

Diversity of political thought among billionaires is notoriously limited; they have the reputation of Neanderthals; it’s why Congress set up public broadcasting stations like NPR — diversity of opinion might be a good thing, they thought.

In the year 2000, Fox News helped throw the election of Al Gore to the defeated George W. Bush. An Australian businessman and his Chinese wife owned Fox News. They each had an ideological stake in the outcome of the election. Their assault against the election of Al Gore became an exercise in bullying on a grand scale.

I watched Fox News in real time spew their venom and lies with an intensity that shocked me. After thirty-six days of lies and propaganda, on December 12, the Supreme Court stepped in where they had no legal jurisdiction and put an end to it — they stopped an ongoing vote recount in the state of Florida to avoid the long court fights and violence the folks at Fox News promised and delivered, in some cases, through their surrogates in the GOP.

The election result doomed America to suffer terrorism, endless war, and a financial collapse that sucked dry one-third of the money in people’s retirement accounts. The financial meltdown  led to world-wide destabilization, especially in Europe and the Middle-East.

Imagine Pastor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s church buying Fox News and pushing candidates and right-wing causes consistent with his twisted vision for America. It’s a lot of tax-free political power for a preacher.

With the repeal of the 1954 LBJ rules, these predator-preachers will multiply to become tens of thousands. The repeal will provide temptations to actors who might not necessarily be Christian or even religious to use the power of the church to corrupt our politics, establish a caliphatic vision, and seize power.

If these religious politicians get their way, they will create an American caliphate; a nation under a Christian version of Sharia law. They will make war between the world’s great religions more likely.

If nothing else, history teaches that wars over religion are bloody; always cruel. Read about the Crusades or Spain’s conquest of South America.

What bothers me is that leaders of religions or cartels (or foreign governments, for that matter) influence our discourse and choose our leaders. It doesn’t seem democratic, at least to me. It doesn’t seem to be a dynamic of governance that our founding-fathers would approve.

The hacking of secure computers and other information technology during the current election by hostile states is demoralizing; especially when Russian intelligence is directing it, as the Department of Homeland Security has said.


burning cross


Let’s face facts. Some in our country have gone over the edge. We have a billionaire, self-funded, running for president. He took control of the Republican Party by pandering for the votes of white supremacists (some call them the alt-right) who fly the Confederate flag in their front yards and on the back of their trucks.

Go to Charlotte, Michigan and drive through white, working-class neighborhoods, anyone who doesn’t believe it.

After WWII, Michigan was the northern state with the largest population of Ku Klux Klan members. White supremacists are obsessed by fire; especially burning crosses. People haven’t changed much in some places. Many supremacists plan to vote for the GOP nominee.

Worse, these haters adore the orange-man with floppy hair who married two women born and raised in communist countries allied with Russia. His current wife grew up in a province of communist Yugoslavia — renamed Slovenia in 1991. 

Give me a break.

The biggest intelligence coup a foreign government can achieve is to place a sympathizer in the bed of a powerful man — one who has publicly aspired to be president for twenty-five years. She only has to spill one secret at the right time to be worth her weight in gold; to change the course of history — and not in a good way; not for our side, anyway.


Melania Knauss Trump
Melania Knauss; born April 1970. Melania is 46. Her husband is 70.

Is Melanija Knavs (she Germanized her name to Melania Knauss) a Russian sleeper agent? Of course not. The idea is preposterous. Her father was a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, which had ties to the Soviet Union. He administered a state-run business enterprise. No problems there.

But wouldn’t everyone sleep better at night if Donald turned over his tax filings, balance sheets, and income statements? Wouldn’t the country be reassured if he disclosed the details of Melania’s immigration to the United States and her personal history; especially the history of her life before he dumped his second wife (with whom he bore a child out-of-wedlock) and brought Melanija Knavs to America to become his third wife? The two married in 2005. Melania became a US citizen in 2006.

Clout craving Christians, like the Reverend Jerry Falwell Jr., seem to believe that they can make a Faustian bargain and come away with the power and influence they covet. They can make a deal with a man who seems to lack a track record in any church to turn their right-wing political agenda into an army for God.


NOTE BY EDITORIAL BOARD: On August 25, 2020 Jerry Falwell accepted a $10.5 million severance package from Liberty University to step down. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, he blamed his wife for the sex scandals that followed him pretty much everywhere during his tenure. 


It’s the offer Satan made to Christ during the forty days and nights Jesus lived in the desert without food or water. He got physically weak. His defenses crumbled. He lay in the dust weak and vulnerable. All he had to defend him were the words of Almighty God. 

Who knows the story?

… Satan took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give to you, he said, if you will bow down and worship me. Jesus said to him, Get away from me Satan. For it is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. Then Satan left Jesus, and angels came to care for him. 

[from the book of Matthew]

Whatever this election is about, it should not be about power. Why not make it about doing what is right?

Why not make it about helping people and preserving peace? Make it about about forgiving and being forgiven. Make it about loving others — even enemies; especially our enemies.

Love wins.

Is anyone left who believes it?

Billy Lee

4 July 2018: The 2016 election is nearly two years past. Billy Lee asked us, The Editorial Board, to add an addendum to his essay. It’s a kind of warning lifted from the ancient scrolls of the Bible, of all places.

The more priests there were, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful. They feed on the sins of my people and relish their wickedness. And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both… A whirlwind will sweep them away… 

Hosea 4: 7, 8, 19

SEGREGATION TAX

Note: Those who have followed the events of the past month will be relieved to learn that Billy Lee and his illegitimate son, Billy Lee Junior, have reconciled. (Can we all just accept it and move on?)

Billy Lee encouraged Junior to write this newest essay, Segregation Tax, to reassure the little b*****d of his unconditional love and trust. The matter of Junior defacing our offices and almost destroying our web-site is behind us.

No hard feelings, says Billy Lee, no matter what the haters say.

The Editorial Board


We Need a Segregation Tax.

Thank you, Daddy, for letting me publish my essay. And thanks to Fanny Jean who fixed grammar and punctuation.

From now on schools, businesses and homeowners in America will be taxed every year they continue to operate in all-white, non-black settings.

The segregation tax doubles each year until these schools, universities, businesses, corporations, and neighborhoods either integrate or go into default. The revenues from the segregation tax will be ear-marked to reduce national debt and fund programs for the poor.

The number of black people needed by businesses, schools, and neighborhoods to trigger avoidance of the segregation tax will be tied to some agreed-upon fraction of the population of black people in the states where they live.

For practical reasons related to difficulties of implementation, my recommendation is to set the fraction to one-quarter. If black folks are 12% of the population in the particular state where they live, then at least one-fourth of 12% (that is, 3%) of their neighbors, school-mates, and co-workers must be black to permit any who are not African American to dodge tax penalties.

A good case-in-point is the recent Republican National Convention.

2,500 delegates attended; 18 delegates were African American. Under the formula, the RNC would pay the segregation tax because at minimum 83 of the delegates should have been black. If the number represented their full proportion of the population, 330 black delegates would have participated.

Everyone knows the GOP is racist; especially its new standard bearer, right? Under my proposal, the GOP could remain racist, foolish, and cruel as long as its members fork over the money.

If my proposal (described below) was in effect this year, the GOP would have paid $50 dollars for pigheadedness. But consider this: had the segregation tax been enacted the day President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the GOP would owe—due to the tax law’s yearly doubling—$22,500 TRILLION dollars. The tax would pay the national debt one-thousand times over.


Segregation tax, we want white tenants
The sooner the United States passes a Segregation Tax, the better.

If we get it right with the folks we abused the most, maybe other minority groups can follow and everyone will be treated fairly—once everyone understands they don’t have a choice.

We have to start with black people because they were brought to America in chains; they’ve been abused by slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, state-terrorism, and a system of regulations both written and unwritten known collectively as systemic-racism. They are the one minority least able to conceal their ethnicity by dress, hairstyle, or make-up. They cannot hide like other minorities sometimes do.

Freedom to discriminate against others based on the circumstances of their birth is not freedom; it is a vile attack on freedom and not only freedom but also the dignity of every human being who, according to the sages of old, is created in the image of God—a cosmic force of truth and love who is alleged by some to have ignited the Big Bang.

Shunning and abusing an entire race or group of people is national suicide. No country that does it survives, right? History is proof. Racism has to end sometime. Why not now? Why not right now while we still have time left to save ourselves?

Maybe start with a tax of $50 dollars the first year. It won’t stop discrimination but it will get people’s attention because everyone will be put on notice that the tax exists and is certain to double to $100 the following year and keep doubling year after year. By year 10, the tax will rise to $25,000 per year per household, business, and school. By year 15, the tax will affect the wealthy; it will by then be nearly one-million dollars.

At year 20, the tax on businesses that operate with the help of less than, say, 3% black people; or the tax on a family who chooses to live in gated-community with less than 3% black people; or the tax on private and public schools with less than 3% in their faculty and student bodies will rise to 30 million dollars.

If America continues to remain as segregated in year twenty as it is now, our national debt can be paid-off by the collection of the segregation tax; our government will at last be profitable; it will accumulate surpluses to enable the funding of social-programs-on-steroids.

A segregation tax spent reducing debt and funding programs for the poor is a win-win for everyone. After integrating and diversifying neighborhoods, businesses, and schools we become a more righteous nation worthy of less derision than we now receive from a world watching everything we say and do. 

The benefit of righteous living is that we avoid revolution; we avoid chaos in our streets from humiliated people who have nothing left to lose. Of course, some haters may choose to live with this risk.

Some haters might continue to choose segregation. They might choose to pay the segregation tax, which by year 26 will be 1.7 billion dollars per year per family, per school, per corporation, per business, per university, per club, per political party, per whatever institution or organization haters choose to join.

If some refuse to integrate and diversify, the segregated poor will have showered on them by the tax code all the wealth of the nation’s haters. They will no longer need them. The world will witness the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of humankind.

One more thing: a segregation tax has to benefit African Americans only; otherwise other discriminated-against minorities will muscle their way in; blacks will find themselves standing at the end of the line one more time as they have under other programs such as the infamous “affirmative action” programs of old.

Some may remember how unfairly applied these ancient programs were.  Everyone but blacks benefitted. People substituted white foreign-nationals to gain advantages. They pushed black folks to the back of the bus like they always do. 


black baby segregation tax
When I grow up, I’m going to need a safe place to live with people who love and respect me. I’m going to need a good job, and police to protect me. How about it, America?

The process of discrimination against blacks under affirmative action became so institutionalized and ingrained that the Supreme Court of Michigan banned affirmative action programs in their state colleges and universities last year.

Statistics proved them right. Blacks were being admitted to colleges at the lowest rate of any minority group based on their population. (Read daddy’s article on the Speedos page, anyone who doesn’t believe it.)

Every other minority group benefitted from affirmative action except black people, who the legislators intended to be the primary beneficiaries.

Uh oh…. Am I  imagining readers jumping off sofas, throwing laptops, and wagging fingers in what they think is my gutless-liberal face?

I think I am. 

Are you out of your mind? they scream; foam spewing. Black people won’t live in our neighborhoods. They can’t afford it! 

Well, maybe some neighborhoods will have to chip-in to set aside a few houses where black families can live for free. What could be the harm in that?

Some neighborhoods might have to take up collections to actually pay families to live in their disagreeable hollows; maybe large sums if the neighborhood is overrun with hillbillies carrying pitchforks and oversized stun-guns.

When people stop to really think about it, I believe they will find that it’s going to be cheaper to hire black people to be their neighbors than to pay the segregation tax.

I think folks can see where I’m going with this. No imagined obstacle is going to be as difficult as paying the segregation tax. People who can’t or won’t pay will go bankrupt; even have their houses and businesses seized.

And that is how it should be. People who malign and exclude African Americans—after all the hell they’ve suffered—are no better than farm animals. Put racists in a pen and let them rot in their own manure. They are fit for nothing. They certainly aren’t fit to live in a modern, civilized country, which the United States of America aspires to be.

Under my proposal, nice homes in integrated neighborhoods everywhere in America (not just in a few hundred or so enlightened districts) could become available to black citizens within a few years. Good jobs and quality education might become available to a people long denied in every state—severely denied in some places, like southern Florida.

Some people might have noticed that I haven’t said a thing about churches. A writer on Wikipedia claims that 37% of Americans attend church every week. No one needs to be reminded that churches are among the most segregated places in America.

I don’t go to church, so I wouldn’t know, but I asked my daddy, Billy Lee, about it, because he goes to church almost every week.  It’s mostly because his wife makes him, but still…

Daddy said my proposal won’t work with churches that ostracize minorities because we don’t tax churches in the United States. Churches belong to God. People who persist in sin and resist God’s Will go to Hell, where they are nailed to two-by-fours and hung to bleed until the end of time.

Churches are safe places for raging sinners to hang out until they discover how really evil they are and change more or less voluntarily. My plan, daddy said, is coercive. It forces people to be good.

God doesn’t work that way. He gives people plenty of time to set things right—an entire lifetime for most. Eventually, they or Jesus ends up paying for the bad things they’ve done. It’s a choice, and most folks get a lifetime to make it. That’s daddy’s explanation. It sounds crazy.

Anyway, maybe we could write-in a clause that gives preferential treatment to black veterans and their families—you know, the people who risk their lives so we can live like plantation owners compared to billions of impoverished people in other parts of the world—not to mention tens-of-millions of anonymous poor who rot inside inner-cities and ghettos.

Another idea, which daddy said I should not write about, at least right now: why not charge police unions 100 million dollars for each black citizen they kill? During the past few years we could have raised billions for the poor.

Another forbidden idea: any cop who kills someone, even when justified, loses the right to carry outside their house for 5 years—on duty or not. It might cut down on non-judicial executions.

Another idea: anyone who has contact with a prisoner who dies in custody for any reason loses their right to carry for one year. Think about it. It might encourage law enforcement to take better care of humans, who in the USA are presumed innocent until found guilty by a court of law.

B L Junior

P.S. Thank you, Daddy, for letting me publish my essay. Sorry I fired your editors and messed-up your office during your vacation. It won’t happen again. Promise.