THE JUNE 28 (2022) JAN 6 COMMITTEE HEARING FEATURING MS. CASSIDY HUTCHINSON — NAMING THE DEVI

The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's first term. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the ways and directions of American politics and culture, and occasionally summarizing the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.                   --------

Thnx to Ms. Cassidy Hutchinson, today’s Jan 6 Select Committee's emergency hearing witness, for keeping her cool as she related the horrors around her as they evolved leading to the attempted coup on January 6, 2021. And thanks to the Jan 6 Committee's Chair and co-Chairs, Bennie Thompson and  Liz Cheny, respectively) for guiding viewers and witnesses through the mire and muck of Trumpville. And thanks to Michael Cohen, for his fall from grace, imprisonment, and self-redemption to speak out about Trumpism. And thanks to others for background context from their own 'Trump' experiences. (Note the proper name of the 'Jan 6 Select Committe' is  U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.)

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Today’s ‘Jan 6' hearing brought to mind watching two prior televised hearings equal to the Jan 6 House Select Committee Hearings’ import: the McCarthy Army Hearing in 1954‘ (“Have you no sense of decency, Senator McCarthy”), and the Watergate Hearings (1971’s “lordy there are tapes”).

All three hearings originate from the actions and/or warped thinking of sociopaths who somehow slithered to national attention in the age of television.

McCarthy died young. Nixon resigned during his second term. Trump, if not sent to prison, and even then, must be permanently barred from ever again filling any elected position or even serving in any public post.

(But even if Trump is banned from future elections, that might not be enough to neutralize Trump — recall that Adolph Hitler served less than a year of a five-year sentence for his 1924 seditious coup attempt to overthrow Germany’s Weimar Republic…much like with Trump’s Jan 6, 2021 coup attempt.)

Also, in the three American near-misses cited above, television, the nineteenth-twentieth century common man’s voyeuristic ticket to the world around us, opened windows to places that confirmed many of our suspicions, repelled us and yet had us fascinated to want more.

Yes, many of us were frightened as Hell sitting in the virtual front row of life’s Play. And those scary actors! But it all added up to great entertainment the evening before we had to return to work at the soup factory…and we remember our emotions as we watched.  Those peaks (‘highs’?) still reside as faint outlines in our minds…and we welcome  their return as new stuff appears from the foggy bog of American culture.

America's vicarious TV hearings, IMO, also ‘jumped’ America into a national addictions just as pernicious as real narcotics. And those experiences groomed us into real substance abuses, e.g., ‘Crack’, “Meth’, ‘Oxy’, Molly…all high-emotional-cost, escapist, chemical boosts that for a short time have given America repeats of the thrills we first felt on a national scale as we watched real life on television.

Now we are again via televised hearings we are watching from front row seats the unpeeling of the Trump orange (double entendre).

This time the destruction of America, by Trump, was narrowly avoided… largely because the plans of psychotic minds seem always to fall apart from the over-reaching hubris of their human hosts. (I distance the evil(ill) mind from its physical host in the belief that the illness is its own ‘self’, apart and above the human host.)  'Trumpism’, the extension of Trump's evil intentions into conned followers are are manifestations of an ill brain.

There is a kind of reptilian ‘beauty’ to Trump’s “-osis”. Trump , as reported he said, didn’t fear the Jan 6, 2021, mob, with their military-grade automatic weapons, because in his snake-kin inner brain, he ‘knew’ the mob and the surrounding crescendo-building chaos was the product of his own subliminal, rarely explicit manipulations of his staff and his zombie proxies at Congress, at state legislatures and the mob actors themselves.

‘Trump’, the ill brain, must be named to force it from the shadows into the light. We don’t see ‘Trump’ the brain. What we see is a shade, a sidewalk shadow cast by the ‘brain’ itself..like a 1930–40s BW horror film, that operates from a human body that is too quickly chosen and fits like a cheap suit.. but regardless is functional!

Evil ‘shades’ are not perfect in everything; they lack human aesthetics and are impatient to get about their business…so they sometimes make bad choices about things trivial to them even if important to the rest of us, such as physical health, nice ties, et. -that is how we catch them out!). 

Trump is not a perfect evil, nor perhaps not even earning top-of class evil when compare to world-class evil entities such as Adolph, or Genghis who killed millions. But if not neutralized, for good, Trump potentially may end American democracy. May the gods bless and continue to watch over us.

THE REVERSAL OF ROE v WADE - THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FAILED ITSELF THROUGH POLITICAL NAÏVETÉ AND BICKERING

 The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's first term. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the ways and directions of American politics and culture, and occasionally summarizing the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted.                 ____

This post responds to 'Jamess's June 25, 2022, article in the DailyKos  (Simply Amazing! The "Common-law experts" that Alito relies on -- Weren't Even Americans). 

Yes, we know that Alito's twisted-history argument leading to the reversal of Row v Wade is bogus. But the Jamess title implicitly carries two lessons for Democrats  -  become grownups, both politically and sometimes personally, and stop the Democrat Party's inclination to drown itself with ego-centered bickering?’  

The lessons from the Trump debacle are: 

POLITE DISSENT, viz., A SPLINTERED BALLOT LOSES EVERYTHING; and 

STOP INTERNAL BICKERING - UNIFY ON BASIC RIGHTS (COMMON GOOD) 

To repeat: the new reality of American politics for Democrats and progressives is that loyal dissent by ballot-splintering factionalism or by abstaining from voting is just 'patio chest-pounding' and the Dem intra-Party bickering is a self-destructive privilege, so 1950s', of a less complex past when we did not lose sleep over Republican or Democrat election winners. (Dems also have their MAGA aspects, too.) 

The Dems lost the 2016 presidential election, IMO, because of their 'naive' internal splintering. 

Democrat Party Loyal Dissent as expressed in do-or-die factionalism and abstaining from voting weakened the progressive vote and helped bring on a regression in America's cultural tone. Within weeks after his inauguration, Trump veered America from Obama's mid-road tone to a hard right wing direction. 

The sudden sharpness of Trump's  right-hand turn ofAmerican governance stunned and demoralized Democrats. More stunning was the barely hidden grift and greed behind Trump's foreign policy and his regressive use of America's national resources. Under Trump, government operations were hidden behind a personal, transactional style that created and favored policies that yielded financial gains for Trump, his family members, and for his corporate supporters. 

As Trump's government operations became more personally transactional, they also became less transparent, And our foreign policy was made a shambles.

Major examples illustrating Trump's radical shifting of America's foreign policy alliances were his November 2017, approval of Phillipine dictator Rodrigo Duterte's bloody campaign to rid the Phillipines of homosexuals and criminal suspects by murdering them on-site by roving right-wing para-military execution squads . 

Then came Trump's September 2018, declaration of "love" for Kim Jong Un, dictator-for-life of North Korea, a rogue nuclear state. 

This was followed by Trump's 2018 expressing that America should withdraw from NATO ... because NATO is a concept outside America's direct interest (which we now strongly suspect really meant that America's NATO membership offended Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, thus interfering with Trump's negotiations with Putin to construct a Moscow Trump Tower... with huge financial gains for Trump and his family.

This was the cess-pit where Trump had quickly, with a near-savant's nose for money, had lowered America.

America's regression under the Trump presidency could have been avoided if Hillary Clinton had won the Electoral College. Hillary won the popular vote, but lost the election because of Democratic Party vote-splitting factionalism .... and additionally, as is now known, because of Russian intelligence's proxy operations that exploited America's addiction and vulnerability to its world of extremely profitable internet social media platforms. Facebook was front and center among Russian intelligence's social media targets leading up to the 2016 election.  (Russian interference in the 2016 election was known perhaps shortly before and then after the election...but this knowledge quickly was buried under Trump's threats and misinformation  programming.)

Dems must grow up from naive 'do-or-die' idealism ....look around at the pitchfork regressionism that followed Hillary's  2026 'loss' to the Trumpists.  

America's fall into regressionism has been recently capped by the American Supreme Court's June 24, 2022, anti-abortion reversal of its 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had legalized abortion for the past half-century.  

DEMS MUST LEAVE THEIR HIGH SCHOOLISH DREAM STATE AND BECOME ADULTS ABOUT AMERICAN POLITICS  (Yes, Dems feel outraged and disbelief about the Trump camp’s lies and disinformation...and their control of major parts of American governance, e.g., the Supreme Court, which Trump reshaped with the hypocritical support of the Mitch McConnell-led Senate and which is steadily eroding American life.  

But Dem reactions must be within Constitutional (legal) boundaries... because that is a core Dem message.  

Also, Dems can’t do a ‘progressive version of ‘Jan 6’  without becoming what is detested ..along with bloodshed. (MAGA supporters must be ‘itching’ for an excuse to use their automatic weapons on a destructive Dem protest… that is today’s reality). 

A solution to the Democratic Party's current stasis - Dems must first define what lessons have been learned from the 6+ years of the ‘Trump Era’ (his campaign years until Jan 20, 2021 … and in the future).  

LESSON #1: DEMS MUST STOP NAIVE INTERNAL BICKERING...while sustaining their major strengths which are INCLUSIVENESS and PROMOTING THE COMMON GOOD.  

The Dems lost sight of this in the 2016 election which they lost through their own egotistic, (childlike), internal-splintering of Dem voting power by offshoot, dissenting yet liberal Dem candidates who insisted on having their place on the November 2016 election ballot ...regardless of consequences.  

And we saw the consequence: HILLARY CLINTON’S 2016 ELECTION LOSS WAS THE RESULT OF THE DEMS’ OWN FACTIONAL CONTRARINESS ...that splintered the anti-Trump ballot from within the Dem party. 

The era of idealist sincere (but naive) LOYAL DISSENT VOTE, ‘I’ll show them, I just won’t vote’ or ‘I’ll vote for a splinter group, Ha!', ended on the morning after the 2016 national election.

A unified Dem voting bloc would have boosted Hillary’s Electoral College count beyond what was needed to win, but Dem self-centeredness prevented that.

LESSON #2: The Electoral College must be central to the DEM's future political calculus.  The Electoral College is a reality even if it is poisonous and a dinosaur CREATED FROM and sustained by entrenched structures that originate from America’s slavery past.  It seems the Electoral College will live on for a good while under America's two party system.

As stated above, Hillary’s substantial 2016 popular vote win meant nothing because Dems still lived in their own version of the MAGA dream that ‘proper’ America was or should still be life as it was in the 1950’s. 

In summary - ‘when are the Dems going to be adults about American politics and stop the Democratic Party's inclination to internal self-destruction?’ There is so much more to lose by bickering within the Dem bloc. 

Putin - the Red Herring, False Trail Proxie of the Comintern (Comunist International)

 This blog site is 12+ years old, from 2009 with President Obama's first term. The focus has been eclectic though focusing on national affairs and culture, and occasionally discussing new technologies. Sometimes Perilces21's observations receive a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains honed and unblunted as a sharp eye is always kept on the ways and directions of American politics and culture.

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This post is written in reference to Russia's Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the West's response with huge economic sanctions .   [“Putin is not afraid of his population getting poor” (Gessen, ref. below), so correct! But it is incorrect to continue to speak of Putin as a lone actor,,,Putin is a sleeping proxy of the Comintern, the Communist International, whose historically consistent and openly stated objective is to topple Capitalism (and capitalism’s own proxies, the democratic nations of the ‘West’). Don’t forget, in 1975 Putin first came into view when he was put in place in the Russian security apparatus and subsequently rose to be head of the KGB and then to prime minister and now is nakedly the dictator of Russia..who wants to restore the USSR, the Soviet Socialist Republic. Putin is a proxy and Russia as the 'insane bad guy' is a facade, straw man and convenient target proxy to divert the West’s attention from the real threat, the Comintern plan to dominate the globe through destabilizing, by any means, western democracies, one by one, with Comintern puppet leaders. Donald Trump and Venezuela are prime examples supporting this notion. And meanwhile western democracies, especially in America's sphere of influence, South America and the Caribbean, are frozen in place and handcuffed, unable to fight back, by their capitalist-corporate interests..and the erosion of the Monroe Doctrine by a negligent America. The West’s corporate and oligarchic greed will be the downfall of democracy. 

[Refs.:  Masha Gessen: The West Is “Insane” for Thinking Sanctions Will Deter Putin | Amanpour and Company, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxJxfSCMvnE;  The Putin Files: Masha Gessen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk9igTqTx9s]

THE 'JAN 6 (2021) COUP' CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS - EVEN BACK IN 2015, SHOULDNT WE HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? (SOME DID)

This blog post is 12+ years old from 2009 with President Obama's first term. Our posts focus on national affairs and culture, and occasionally technology. Sometimes our observations receive a critical eye, but our 'pen' remains unblunted as we keep a sharp eye on the ways and directions of American politics and culture.  

THE THEME.  We must take advantage of this time of plague and political danger to sit, think, reconcile and reset America's path forward.   

There must be a national reconciliation of political parties and a re-defining of our national morals, ethics, and perspectives ...and especially we must commit to our future goals for the COMMON GOOD ... and then let those seeds grow for five years until we can how to make them better.  All of these qualities and thoughts seem to have been trounced during the grab-bag, treasure hunt Trump years whose tainted air, though dissipating, stubbornly lingers! 

In retrospect, and with perhaps just a little bit of mind-stretching, we might have imagined and posted a prediction of the January 6, 2021, near-coup. But we held back on 'going there' and even sketch-posting such a  scene as too...something. And anyway, wouldn't the mechanics of our government prevent such a banana-republic thing from happening ...here? But it did nearly happen here and right before our shocked eyes (but not a surprise to the cabal of 'important' establishment figures, minor actors, and just ordinary followers of Trump ... united in their 'heil' adulation of Trump.)

Nowhere along this trail of postings since 2009, did this blogger truly expect America to have a coup set in motion ... by, and with the cooperation of (co-conspiracy, abetting?) rightist-leaning establishment individuals and institutions ... who collectively operated in the dark and who then, with their side-puppets, hid their plans from intelligence and law enforcement agencies. (When just knowing about them and not reporting such conspiracy planning is a violation of national security laws.) 

In retrospect, the co-conspirators in the nature of amateurs brayed their hubris and cultish intentions for all to hear and see... by whoever chose to hear and see. Trump's supporters heard the call clearly and a bunch showed up in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. 

Apparently, all of that background came as a surprise to the Trump opposition.  And this could be a critical test for American democracy, i.e, even among Trump non-supporters, were there those who knew what was planned but kept quiet?  Will there have to be a national reconciliation of political parties and defining our national morals, perspectives ...and especially our future goals as a nation for the COMMON GOOD.  All of these qualities seem to have been trounced during the grab-bag tenor of the Trump years.

[The author - world citizen, educator, technologist, candidate for elected office...santiago-compostela pilgrim.]

AMY CONEY BARRETT ‘S ‘ORIGINALISM’ WILL PUSH AMERICA BACK TO 1800s VICTORIANISM

The recent Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, used the term ”Sexual Preference” to describe the membership of the LGBTQ community. This was both shocking and foreboding. ’Shocking’ because, first, ’Sexual Preference’ as applied to the LBGTQ community is scientifically an obsolete and inaccurate descriptor by at least a couple of decades... as established by genetic studies that.prove human gender is not the 1800s strictly (and strictly ’enforced’) heterosexual picture and therefore variances (LGBTQ) from traditionalist heterosexuality are genetically ’natural and legitimate’ and therefore cannot, should not, be an issue for legal punishment, social ostracizing. employment discrimination ... or any form of gender-disadvantaging..

Second, equally as shocking, Barrett’s use of “sexual preference”, if sincere and not the rote-spouting of an ideologue who knows better, either reveals she is embarrassingly ’out  of touch’ or painfully ignorant about current scientific realism regarding sexuality and is thus unqualified to render a SCOTUS opinion on some of today's most important and sensitive legal protection issues in America. 

(if Barrett was insincerely spouting learned ideology then America is indeed screwed because Barrett comes with a ’preformed, Radical-right agenda’.).  

With Justice Barrett in the lead, will America see a revival of gender conversion therapy that will, in disguise as a ’corrective’ medical treatment, legally pressure LGBTQ persons to recant their ‘flawed’ sexual ‘choice’, i.e., LGBTQ, to miraculously and enthusiastically embrace their new heterosexuality... a genetic lie?  

And then, lastly, Barrett’s use of the ‘sexual preference’ descriptor is foreboding because whether sincere or not, Barrett will be a factor for regressing America by fifty years or more on several critical legal fronts - healthcare, ‘abortion rights, voting rights and protections, women’s equal pay in the workplace, labor rights, minority issues, ...and in other issues that are not strictly in the ’progressive’camp but are vital to the security and quality of American life.

ORIGINALISM!  

(This post is a warning about the dangerous, regressive effect an ultra-conservative ‘Originalism’ interpretation of the American Constitution will likely have on America. And more, will the recent nomination to the Supreme Court of Amy Coney Barrett, a self-described ‘Originalist’ (ala her legal mentor Anthonin Scalia under whom she clerked) bring about a radically imbalanced Supreme Court (6-3 conservative) in favor of ultra-conservatism and consequentially reverse a century of American social progress.

CRITIQUING ORIGINALISM. 

This blogger regards ‘Originalism” as an excuse to avoid putting the extra effort, beyond simply reading, into studying and understanding the deeper meanings of the American Constitution as they relate to an evolved America two hundred years after the Founders, ...and gaining a perspective about future issues that might face the Constitution . This and more would be the benefits of a non-literalist interpretation of the Constitution. Doesn’t it seem that the ‘sacred’ jurisprudence goal of any serious candidate for the Supreme Court would be to present the benefits of such deeper search for meaning ... to show palpable, distinguished evidence in writings and case opinions that the candidate to the court has delved to and outstanding degree into the ‘What’s’,‘Wherefores’, Why’s’ and ‘Hows’ that underpin the deeper philosophical concepts that shaped the Founders’ thoughts and intentions, especially regarding the potential ‘Relevancy’ contained in a ‘Living Constitution’. 

IMHO, Originalists take a permanent lunch break midway in the above sequence of Constitutional interpretayion while others are left to clean up the wreckage caused by ‘mis-application’ from too-narrow interpretations resulting in mis-applicaton.

A quick explanation of legal-world ‘Originalism’ could be by comparison with its opposite’s view of the Constitution. 

For an ‘Originalist’, the Constituion is a static document containing the Founders holy words which should only be read and memorized like a catechism...and not ‘messed with’ by verlaying things and opinions outside its exact historical context. For example, an Originalist ‘studying’ the Constitution as written’ would not see any relation between the written words and the multitude of passing cars (no horses in sight) and especially seeing people of all colors and gender endowmemts walking around blithely and unworried by their ‘differences’ from a so-called norm... as written, or implied in our Constitution, 200 plus years ago.

The apposite legalist, on ther other hand, becomes immersed in the Constituion and attempts to interpret its words relevant to the here and now. 

Given that a majority of the Founders were slave owners, and saw neither slaves nor women as potential voters, it seems highly threatening to current social meaning and stability to take ‘Originalism’ seriously. 

OTHERS’ VIEWS ON ORIGINALISM

Umair Haque’s article (Medium, October 24, 2020) cuts right to the core of his distaste for Originalism in its relation to the Senate Confirmation Hearing on the nominaton of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court:

Umair Haque on Originalism:                                                                                                  “How “Originalism” Prevented America From Becoming Part of the Modern World  (“The ACB Hearings Show How Antiquated, Racist, and Misogynist Trying to Think Like a 18th Century White Man Really Is”)

Haque’s is a fitting social media title that aptly conveys the controversy about judge Barrett’s unsuitability because of her “Originalist” interpretation of the American Constitution. 

America may have a decades-long clean-up ahead if Amy Coney Barrett indeed sits on the Supreme Court. (Of course, there will be many praying that she will ‘grow’ to acknowledge America’s evolution since the Founders and Barrett will adapt her legal and moral perspectives in accord.

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The title of this post summarizes the atmosphere surrounding the potential Supreme Court shift toward a strict (radical, perhaps) conservativist interpretation of the American Constitution in both legal philosophy and applied principles. This shift is anticipated from Donald Trump’s nomination to fill the recently vacant seat of liberal SCOTUS Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg (deceased Sept 18, 2020) with the conservative Amy Coney Barrett (Appelate Justice).  

Judge Bader Ginsberg was ‘with’ us from 1993 to 2020, and played a central role, in her unassuming way, in shaping a modern America .... despite America’s strong counter-tides of tradionalist, even regressionist sentiments and factionism.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be more than missed.

  

Donald Trump, in a not unexpected manner, plans to drop on America, a souvenir of his hopefully only term as president.   

Trump’s ‘gift’ to America in this case is the nomination of Amy Conney Barrett to fill the now empty seat of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Justice Ginsberg was a champion of women’s rights and equality, and made every effort to develop and extend the protections of those principles to everyone. Amy Conney Barrett is a stark contrast to Judge Ginsberg. Barrett is a career legal conservative and a somewhat more-than-even-traditional religious conservative - although raised in a strongly Catholic family, Barrett belonged to an ecumenical, charismatic covenant group, the People of Praise centered in Indiana.

Barrett comes with several areas of doubt about her suitability and legal ‘fit’ for the Supreme Court in today’s world, i.e., her ability to understand and relate to how America, and the world, have evolved over the 200 years since the Constitution was created. 

Recent article titles examplify the debate over her suitability to the nation;s highest court.  One such title is the lead-off to this post from ‘David’, Crooks and Liars (October 14, 2020)

 Internet Recoils In Horror Over Barrett's Ruling That Saying N-word Doesn't Make Workplace ‘Hostile’  (A ruling by Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that whitewashed racism in the workplace shocked the Internet this week.)

Umair Haque notes this reservation in blunt manner (agreed with by Pericles21) in the above-mentioned Medium article (October 14, 2020);  

How “Originalism” Prevented America From Becoming Part of the Modern World  (“The ACB Hearings Show How Antiquated, Racist, and Misogynist Trying to Think Like a 18th Century White Man Really Is”)

And finally from  CathyYoung’s article on the Barrett nomination (ArcDigital, October 13, 2020):

The Handmaid and the Feminist                                                                                    Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination raises difficult questions of faith, justice, and gender.                                                                                                                                        “I believe that Barrett’s under-the-wire nomination — especially in conjunction with the Garland fiasco — stinks to high heaven on fair-play grounds. In fact, I would argue that if Barrett has not been confirmed by November 3 and if Trump loses, she should withdraw.”

Most notable from Ms Young’s just quoted ArcDigital article is it disparages the importance the LGBTQA community attaches to Coney Barrett’s “Sexual Preference” descriptor ... about which this blogger ‘Strongly’ takes issue in that “Sexual Preference” is so much a ‘Tell’ about where Coney Barrett’s mental context seems to belong, historically .... perhaps in Victorian England in the 1870s or so when LGBTQ were imprisoned or sent to mental wards). Or, most recently, in the 1950s America ...

“It’s this issue — the compromised moral legitimacy of the nomination itself — that Barrett’s critics should emphasize. Instead, much of the left has chosen ridiculous lines of attack such as Barrett’s use of the term “sexual preference” rather than “sexual orientation.” (Some LBGT activists argue “preference” is offensive because it implies that sexual orientation is a choice — even though the term is still widely used in scientific literature.) 

This blogger is not LGBTQA but “Sexual Preference” is so rmbarrasingly ‘yesterday’! Amy Coney Barrett has a lot of catching up to do to become a positive factor in America’s continued evoltition/

TRUMP’S BENT-UP, CROOKED TRUMPET HAS LED AMERICA TO BECOME A THIRD RATE DICTATORSHIP

To begin this post, Trump lost the 2016 American presidential election’s popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes, but he ‘won’ the electoral college ‘tally’ by a significant number. However, that ‘Win’ resulted from a total margin of 77,000 votes spread strategically (through voter district gerrymandering) over three critical states - an accomplishment critically aided by a murky package of onion-layered data-mining and internet analysis-planting operations, shell companies and ultimately funded by Russian Intelligence. All of this added up to manipulation of the American 2016 election thru the ‘cooperation’  of Trump campaign managers, Wikileaks and an ‘independent’ Ukraine-based (not Ukrainian!), cyber-snooping startup that did ‘business with both the Republican and then the Democrat Party and alongside with  Russian Intelligence (GRU) - a fine mix as they would say in Boston. 

Once in office, Trump has openly, and without restraint from a partisan and blatantly enabling Senate, broached historically normative as well as some Constitutional presidential boundaries.

Trump has proven ignorant of, or ignores knowledge of American diplomatic practices, treaties and objectives; he has set his own personal, often erratic and short-term changeable, new ‘courses’ for American diplomacy that seems to change daily somewhere and appears to the international community to be a kind of drunken random walk. This has negatively impacted America’s trade and financial links.

Trump operates America like a small, sole-owner corner shop; or he wants to operate America that way.  He is a micromanager and to render America suitable to his small-scope managerial capabilities, he has unmethodically (but effectively) reduced America to a giant dressed in rags, now humbled and bent to his small store vision limits. Trump has stripped most of the major government departments of seasoned top staff, reduced significantly operational employees, and inserted his personal directors who like him are unfamiliar with the operations and purposes of their new jobs. As the result, America presents to the world a face of ignorance, amateurish bumbling and unprofessionalism that constantly throws historical allies off-balance and estranged America’s relationships with them. A telling sign of the Trump era are his apparently favorite international leaders, a consistent set of global autocrat dictators - principally those of North Korea, Philippines, Brazil and Russia. America, directed by Trump, is no longer a ‘peer’ within the diplomatic and trade circles of former allies…why…because America no longer knows what it is doing!

On other fronts, Trump has shown a propensity to associate with fringe elements from conspiracy-theory groups to pseudo-science to neo -Nazi racists. Nazi-flage wavers are tolerated in public now and have open-door access to Trump. 

Amid this and more, Trump has attempted to micro-manage America’s response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic - he has fronted new ‘cures’ as often as he hears of them even though some have been bizarre such as calling for testing bleach injections and throat sprays. Continuing with his attitude regarding the pandemic, Trump also displays a hostility to Science methodology and safety testing. Also in this regard, he has nearly destroyed the environmental regulations set up by former republican administrations to assure Americans of safe water, air and products. 

To summarize, but there is much more that can be described, the Trump presidency has been characterized by ignorance, unprofessionalism, anti-science, anti-regulatory, anti-intellectualism, anti-government, small-scope destructiveness and pettiness. Plus all of these characteristics are mixed in with what some see as psychopathy, malignant-narcissism and a projected self-destructive bent.

The question is, at this time, how further down this destructive path and to what darker corners will Trump drag America and the rest of the world?

PUNKNG THE AMERICAN BLUE COLLAR WORKER, TRUMP STYLE. (‘RISE UP’, ‘UPTON SINCLAIR!)

This is short just to get it said NOW!

Can we believe it? Just how twisted can Trump get? Apparently really twisted and dark.

In 21c America, DT wanted to force American meat packer workers to go back to work before the Pandemic had abated? Trump appealed to patriotism in the face of the enemy, Coronavirus 19 ... just as his supporters appealed to America’s seniors to refuse treatment in order to cull us of weaker citizens thus achieving an imagined ‘herd immunity’ sooner ... and get the economy (read, Wall Street) sooner.

Plus, threaten the workers whose good judgement said “NO!”  (in the face of no vaccine and no assurances that they will have protective equipment while on the job). with loss of still-active unemployment payments!

Plus, requiring said workers to sign papers absolving meat packing companies and executives from accountability if the workers caught the virus on the job?

Plus, not requiring said workers to wear masks or practice on-the-job distancing? Or require the companies to provide this protective equipment!

Unbelievable1

America under Trump has regressed to the 1920’s meat-packing scandals written about so damningly by Upton Sinclair in his 1906 novel, The Jungle.  ‘The Jungle’ depicts the deplorable life, status and working conditions of the American meat packing worker (which led to the establishment of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA,1906) making it a crime to adulterate.or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food and to assure sanitary conditions to make these products). 

 “...poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. 

A review by the writer Jack London called it "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."^[3]

Again, America, a ‘Ship of Fools’! Where has Trump led America to?

Hail to Sunnier (And 'Funsier') Shores: Four Possible Phases of Resignation

Pericles21's comment in the November 17, 2019, 'Palmer Report' post ("Donald Trump just completely changed his story about why he was at Walter Reed hospital").  
Pericles21:

"On the Run' to sunnier shores. First, close up shop (condo) in the Big Apple (done) and relocate residence to Florida (done). Then fake a medical condition (done). Then, 'Sayonara' to the ugly 'Old Desk' in that stuffy, no-fun office, followed by 'au revoir' to Pelosi, Shiff and the whole DC crew including Giuliani, Flynn, Igor and Lev, Cohen,... Four Phases."

Normalization of the Abnormal - Trump and Barr Discuss the Mueller 'Report' Before It Gets to Congress, Obstruction Again

How Stupid Does DTrump and Barr think the Voting Public are? How wierder can this get? Barr has taken off his mask of People's attorney and, 'Geez' Mr Barr what a big scaly tail you have! What a spectacle! A Carnival! Thursday, when the 'Barr' redacted Report is presented to Congress, will Dtrump simply flop his dedito's and walk away? "Walk him out, walk him out"!

Let's see, late today, April 17, 2019, Attorney General William Barr, in person, proffered to DTrump a first look at Barr's semi-redacted Mueller Report...presumably in the White House rooms, no less. Barr's action was apparently in violation of norms and perhaps actual law, but all consequences of Barr's, and Trump's collusion, depends on how successful the GOP can spin things. Why did Barr do this'? Did Barr really think his meeting with DTrump could be hidden, and remain hidden for more than 8 hours? Did Barr throw aside his own protective shield of remaining unbiased as he is supposed to behave? Is the Mueller Report that bad for Trump? The Mueller Report is to be "redacted", 'solo', by hizoner Wm Barr, US AG, for first perusal by the several House and Senate committees interested in this kind of thing. Contrary to those committees' expectations, maybe, the item Barr will present will probably not be something to bet on for untouched-by-biased-Trump veracity. Barr's tipping the lid of the can of worms to Trump is not something the House committees can ignore no matter how bent this whole Trump story has become. We are advised by the press that Barr committed a 'bad' equivalent to obstruction of justice. The redacted full 'report', or at least a stack of paper sheets, will be trotted around to the Congress tomorrow, Thursday.

See Palmer Report blog, "Donald Trump and William Barr just handed House Democrats a clear path to impeach them both"
BD Holly | 10:29 pm EDT April 17, 2019

American Racism: Justice Thomas, LGBTQA and Just Stuff

This post is motivated by Mark Kaplan's November 27, 2017, article in 'Alternet.org' (Clarence Thomas Must Resign) where he correlates Anita Hill's 1991 allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, during his Senate Confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, with the current sexual harassment allegations facing Roy Moore of Alabama who is seeking election as a US Senator from Alabama.


In 1991, the US Senate did confirm Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court where he remains to this day, but as Mark Kaplan points out, in hindsight, there was much to regret and puzzle over in the Senate's confirmation - by what occurred then during the hearings and later from Justice Thomas's often puzzling and enigmatic conduct (seen in his rare writings and verbal bench expresions (a marked lack thereof). One item that remains an egregious feature from the 1991 hearings was that in response to the Senators' fierce challenges to Anita Hill's allegations, she agreed to, and passed, a lie detector test ...that Clarence Thomas refused to take.

Overall, the 1991 Hill-Thomas events appear to define a threshold in American history that presaged a growing pattern of revelations, and counter attacks, of past and current sexual harassment in American institutions, both public and private.

But to Justice Thomas. Since his 1991 confirmation, Justice Thomas has acquired a consistent aura of mystery concerning just whose perspective and cause he represents. although one can glimpse through the fog and mist he throws up around his mumblings (literally) he does not 'voice' a progressive point of view,...nor does he always express a reactionary opinion. At best, Justice Thomas has appeared to have struggled to hedge his bets against all critiques and analyses. He seems to have a fear of expressing himself in any way that might identify him as a proponent of anything, and certainly hide his minority group membership. This 'running from himself' seems to originate from unresolved confusion and hurt, from from early age, from racial prejudice. Thomas's unresolved hurts seemingly restrict and throw a fog over his rare, written opinions and utterings from the bench. (In 2016, Justice Thomas made the news by breaking his 10 year silence from the SCOtUs bench.) Thomas's rare and largely unintelligible 'expressions' on the Supreme court stand out (i.e., are uniquely different from) from his colleagues's and when they do appear, seem awkwardly worded and simply different, from his colleagues's - an exception being Justice Scalia (RIP), his legal compatriot, whose anti-LBGTQA and anti-abortion, anti-progressiceness, ...seems to have lived in the same existential void as Thomas.

IMHO, the reason why Thomas' rare writings and 'sayings (rarely recorded because they are like a hurt child's spurts of confused anger. Thomas presents as a physical-appearing adult who disguises those hurts in empty-sounding phrases stemming from empty-meaning thoughts that even he seems to recognize as not worth speaking, as to speak these mind-farts would jeopardize his standing with the public and his SCOTUS peers...as they do when rarely uttered.

Justice Thomas's rare and unintelligible 'expressions' seem to say he has not confronted the hurt he has from past (and presently felt) discriminatory prejudices from others, and come to accept that those prejudices are based on superficial physical qualities he can not correct...no matter how hard he might try and pray to remove. These targeted natural (God-deemed) qualities are for Thomas focused on skin color. Thomas does not appear to have an adult minority person's reaiization that his and others' qualities such as race, color or LGBTQ are 'God-given' ('natural') and that he/she is morally right (and has the Constitutional right) to challenge those prejudices when they restrict his and others' freedoms to live the same as every majority (white, hetero) American citizen, i.e., to enjoy full color-gender-other blind Constitutional rights and protections, including marriage.

Consequently, imho, Thomas's rare and largely unintelligible SCOTUS opinions often appear to be ramblings to himself and his still-tortured soul. It's as if he wants to say he recognizes racial and gender prejudice and discrimination but fears to seem to acknowledge he is a member of the targeted group. Consequently, his opinions in cases of racial/gender nature are absent or simply disregarded as pro-forma (for him) and of little worth.

Thomas has yet to develop an adult's comprehension of 'what's going on' which would allow him to formulate an 'au courant', 'woke' sense of self, his boundaries, and his probable feeling of hurt from imjustly breached personal boundaries. This evolved but unreached selfhood would have given Justice Thomas a self-respecting defiance of those who breach those Constitutionally assured boundaries and justly define the prejudiced and their causes as unjust!. Instead, Thomas appears to struggle, with inarticulate non-success, to render all points of view, even of the prejudiced, in equal light. Thomas seems to think this middle-road stance is safe but it actually makes him appear empty and useless.

Moreover, from his 'waffling', Thomas seems to want to give racial/gender prejudice an equally valid moral weight as the misguided prejudices of the alt-right oppressor of LGBTQA and racial minorities...which also seems to be a hallmark of the present Trumpian (POTUS) philosophy.

(Pericles21 is certain that Justice Thomas, as an adult African-American male, continues to experience hurtful prejudice.) The point though is when might Justice Thomas wake up?

Trumpian Times: EyeBall Deep in DT's Dialectic Doo Doo ('You Don't know What You Got 'Till It's Gone)

This is a post-in-progress. Stay tuned.

PREFACE:
This blog began in 2009 and was somewhat consistently added to through today, 2017. What a ride it's been since election day 2016! And what a difference from the transition from Presidents Bush II to Obama - a transition that was carried out with mutual self-discipline and regard, and above all, a concern for America's continuity and peace. (Bush 2 is to be congratulated for his decency with which he conducted himself through that smooth transition).

But this transition, the 'Trumpian Tribulations', is a different show - this is a taking of America by force, an occupation by a foreign enemy (in several ways, morally and what looks to be a true coup assisted by a foreign enemy state, Russia)...but no one seems to have the guts to do anything serious about it.

It is also a macabre sign of this transition that so many of this blogger's acquaintances are so deeply affected (shocked, traumatized, mind-zonked ..) by the barbaric and crude disrespect, and unmerciful willy-nilly viciousness and ruination-by-trampling as DT and his gang of troglodytes have raped, pillaged, decimated and 'sold into bondage' sensitive and secure federal government apparatus. (Though all in character for DT, one supposes.)

'Oh, Hillary, Sanders, Stein, Johnson, Brazille, Wasserman-Schultz...what were you thinking? And all you lib-progressives who with miffed, kindergarten egos sat this one out and did not vote at all...well, this is what you (and we all) get. What a price to pay for lib-progressives to be educated for future campaigns.

But what fascinates one most is how the perpetrator (once again our 'DT', 'OBP'(Orange Big Pimp'n), OG (Original Gonzo) so easily (and often) has gotten away with flaunting American standards no POTUS has ever violated ...with only feeble complaints like American Tradition is a sweet deer-fawn being done with by a hyena mauling and eating it live while it simply lays there in wide eyed shock.

One has to wonder why (if one cares)if this 'stick up' is so easy, why no POTUS in one's reading hasn’t done the same previously in America's short history.? One explanation must be that regardless of Party, every modern POTUS except this One has had a basic respect set for the office, the country and humanity, that create built-in borders of some decency.

And, this job is not easy. Every modern POTUS has quickly shown signs of mental exertion trying to seriously juggle and manage America's complexities. Struggled to find the right way.

But THIS ONE makes it look easy because he is unaware of traditions (like the Constitution of the United States), has no behavioral boundaries and knows very little of the significance of the job except for a one-sided misconception that the Presidency is just a job description of something that should be simple because 'obviously' being President means automatic exemption from all laws and the ultimate freedom to do what one wants - like 'grabbing America by the 'Shorts'.

In other words, being POTUS is a simpleton's dream come true - the ultimate freedom to rule like an emperor or a kid in a candy shop. Or, it should be..and if it isn't. then all one has to do is whine, wscrean, threaten and pull any other kind of nasty tricks a man-child can manage or dream up. And, 'regarde', they all fall down ...especially if man-child occasionally throws in a brief second of adult-mimicry that makes them all (mostly) swoon with relief at the prospect that man-child has finally grown up. Only it's all just one more joke on us.

The conflicts of interest and monetizing of the Presidency for private gain is appalling! And the family altogether seem a gang of rug merchants parking their camels on the front lawn and pissing in the corners of the Oval Office. Sorry.

Trump aka the Adams Family Gang--Settling in and Setting Up at the White House.

The Adams family are almost moved into the White House... in Washington... 'DC' that is? Setting up a swap meet booth at the West Wing...getting rid that old stuff laying around.

Morticia as usual is taking her time, brooming in from Borneo (or from the Bronx...hmmmm).

Uncle Fester usually 'hangs'(in harness) in the unused intell-briefing room wherefrom he was last seen emerging with a smile and satisfied belch whilst munching on Mike Flynn's thumb knuckle - Mike disappeared some days ago.

The Pensive, ever faith-full stolnik, the one in charge of ...something, occasionally presents his glow-worm countenance to be chain-whipped to the amusement of all.

The crew assembles in their good time. Some kind of show is about to happen and crescendo. Something coming.

Comments and Advice For a Progressive in 2017

What to say? The dirge. The droning, throbbing ache.

Glum Gloom. Love the Bomb? (The copout option?...don't think so, but 'Geez'.)

The White House turned into a flea-market stall. A 'Carney' booth.

Might be some laughs in 2017 as the china breaks...but those crashing sounds will also mean that someone innocent and helpless will most likely suffer by DT's ignorance and incompetence.

Enough. The fire in the gut will come back soon, then write more. Meanwhile, 'Carry On' Warren, Reid, Bloomberg...'Hard and Classy'... the 2017 mantra for Democrats.

I'm Smart About Intelligence, Most Times. But Senator, I'm Telling This Investigative Committee I Don't Know A Thing About America's Intelligence Ops

If this blogger were in position to make large bank but was handcuffed in my business dealings by being bound to secrecy, then I would separate (erect a bulkhead, firewall) my activities from that which binds me.

For instance, if I were a mega-million/alleged multi-billionare, and there were critical payment deadlines coming in my business affairs just as I was about to be sworn in as some country's chief executive, why I would firewall my CEO activities from any compromising national secrets until the coast was clear, say 12-18 months into the 4 year term...know what I mean.

And what is great is the system is set up - I mean, 'the system just might be set up so that my second-in-command could take over the role of directly managing that secret-activities department. You see what I'm getting at? Why, I could hold that top dog position forever and be untouchable as for conflict-of-interest...while, ahem, making very uuuge bank. They don't call me 'OP' for nada.

Sound familiar?

Citizen, Have You Heard, 'The Goths Have Entered Rome'?

An oral history, of five parts, in canto style:

Stanza One. Introduction.
The Goths Have Entered Rome. They sit at Caesar's table and gorge on the sacred geese. They eat sloppily off golden plates and slyly slip them into their mangy cloaks. Then toss gnawed bones to the floor. Caesar winces but none of the 'guests' notice his grimaces.

Stanza Two.
The Barbarians have breached Rome's gates. They defile the sacred Vestal Virgins (all 10's) while the august Senate, all acquiescent and smiling through slits in their fool-masks, bent-knee and mock-cheer through open but soundless mouths.

Stanza Three.
The Barbarians strut the Capitol's avenues all in wonder. Yet they yearn to be elsewhere, among more familiar prey, around dancing campfires brightly sparkling with agreeable company agog in wonder at loot and booty pillaged from Rome's coffers. More booty, of various nature, to decorate the fort Towers of this other land, of the Barbarians.

Stanza Four.
Caesar and Romans-publius have yearnings also and offer sacrifice and pleadings that the Gods may grant the Barbarians' wishes and return them forthwith to wherever they dream - places that match their natures, their lusts, their insatiable purposes . In Rome, the Barbarians find no quenching of their lust and restless pacing. Forever are in thrall to the call of their lust-filled horizons.

Stanza Five.
The Barbarians seek to assume Rome's mantle by taking over her affairs of state. They call treaty gatherings and seek to impress ambassadors from Caesar's dependencies. Who they entertain with tossings of gold, banquets served with their most favored and still bloody slain forest creatures, and tales of orgiastic conquests and bold-lie conquerings. Only to see the ambassadors in flight confused, fearful and lamenting.

How shall this tale end? Who shall prevail? What die faces will Fate, gambling, toss? Will sly Comey-tus, Rome's darting-eyed, slithering serpent from the gutters experience chopped head or will his bite be felt again - but this time by his handlers?

Trump #2: Post Election Reaction - Recap, Views and Predictions On A Trump Presidency

A FUTURE SOMETIME: America will eventually cross the thresh hold and become a post-racial, economic egalitarian democracy upholding the original theme of the Common Good. Maybe not for a generation but eventually.


This Blog, "The Perched Eye", was begun in 2009 when President Barack Obama was about to be inaugurated. With apologies, 2009 was the first time this author paid close attention to the intricacies of American politics...although in the 70's and 80's and 90's, it was impossible not to be swept into the political dramas around Vietnam, Watergate, the Reagen-Air Controller battle, and the opening of the Mid-East conflicts in Iran and Iraq.

Now, America's political arena has opened with a new production, the Trump presidency.

Here are some views from 'The Perched Eye' about last night's election of Donald Trump to be the 46th president of the United States (and may God bless us all):

1. THE NEXT 4 YEARS?. ??? Who knows. Let's hope something is done for the COMMON GOOD.

2. 'CODED LANGUAGE' - appears to work (the Base seems to have arisen by sub-liminal code words and images).

3. ENERGY will draw tears. The Base's kids will drown in petro-pollution and suffer generations of genetic damage.

4. CLIMATE CHANGE. Ignored by both candidates and will continue to be swept under the rug by the petro lobby.

5. IT'S ALL A SHOW, so grab a large supply of popcorn, buy a wide-screen and settle in for 4 years of TV carnival.

6. REMORSE. Coulda', mighta', O-me-o-mya'. Move on!

7. HILLARY DID WIN, goals were largely met...except the other side, unexpectedly even by them, met theirs more.

8. TRUMP BOUGHT A RIDE ON A WILD BRONCO - he did not sweep the election', more the truth he was 'swept in' by a rogue
tidal wave. Big difference - 'to do' or 'be done to'...who's in control?

9. MIGHTA'S. 'Bernie and Warren', or 'Warren and Biden' or any pairing not including Hillary migha' won, maybe.

10. "BEWARE THE TIDAL WAVE EBBING" should be posted as a banner over President Trump's Oval Office desk.
'What goes around, comes around'.

11. TRUMP WAS (IS) A TOOL (the 'Trumpet') - of grass roots disaffection, disappointment, with the status quo in DC.

12. A TOOL OF HIS BASE, Trump should be careful to watch his step - he's in a cage full of 'angry'.

13. POSITIVES - several of his prior negatives:

Nobody's 'Boy'. Nobody's, Base;

'Cowboy', 'Gunslinger': his actions may be erratic, impromptu, "off-script". You bought it, Base;

Internationally (Russia, China) - now America has a despot just like them. Good or bad, who knows, Putin?

14. PREDICTIONS.

SURPRISES!!;

DISAPPOINTMENTS (Roll-backs - Roe, HealthCare, Education, Social Security, Energy, climate change...lot's of stuff the Base didn't understand...);

'RUSTY NAIL'- not good for anyone, it scrapes and infects;

COMMON GOOD - if he follows this path, he doesn't have to favor any group, race, nationality or religion - he might be enough of a maverick to carry this off;

'TRUMP THE OPERA'. (Seriously), comedy or tragedy, or both (my bet) give it 10-18 months.

15. AMERICA WILL GO ONWARD...but it will not be smooth.

A FUTURE SOMETIME: America will eventually cross the thresh hold of post-racial, economic egality, and the Common Good. Maybe not for a generation but eventually.

Election 2016: Trump's Alter Ego. An Election Song For America...Pale the Moon and Dark the night, Coyote howls and laughs in delight, life so full, of sheep so many, so fat, so easy

"A Player at Play". Or, "Trump Over-cums all". Yup.

Donald Trump. (OP, 'Original Player', 'Orange Pimpin', 'BC' - big Con, etc., take your pick.) Donald Trump is America's 'Trickster', a 'Master Manipulator'. A more impolite term (but appropriate), and especially if one is deeply appalled by his lack of moral compass(as is the case with most of us where Trump is concerned), is to say he is straight out 'Pimpin Don'. Take your pick. (This blogger prefers in private to use 'OP' - 'Orange Pimpin')

'OP'. 'OP' is always hard...and ready for the next score...or grope. (RIP, 'Easy'). But, what is real and what is hype? 'Why, that's the 'con', Chickies!'

But Trump has loyalties, if not scruples. He knows where buttered bread lays - why, right here in America. Trump even has a song he sings to America before, during and after each Pimpin' play:

'Pale the Moon and Dark the Night, Coyote Howls and Laughs with Delight, Life is Breezy, So Many Sheep, So Fat, So Easy' - 'OP's' song for America.

There is much for OP to sing about, this 2016 election is special, much tasty lambs to trick, much fame-hungry girls to grope.

Where are the American satirists to give meaning in razor edged words to this 2016 election feast?

There was Mencken , or Paul Krassner ...but ,imho, the better eye on the 2016 political circus would be Hunter Thompson (RIP, Hunter, wish you were still around...things have slimed beyond bizarre...and there's no one left on this orb who's been closer to living Hell than you...Please, beg 'mercy' for us still here.)

But...what's going on, America, in 2016?

Well,...'Election 2016', is like the farcical performance'Act' in the American tragi-comedy..and this Act belongs to 'Trickster'. Yes, OP is the clever Buffoon, the Falstaff, the Pantagruel, the Sancho Panza. But he, the Master of Trickery is also at the same time their polar doppelganger, their Henry V, their Gargantua, their Don Quixote. This is the ultimate Trump trick. Because, underneath that synth-chem dye job is the grinning, glassy eyed Zombie, the soul-less ánti’įhnii. Believe. America, be woke and learn.

'OP' will lose the election but he will 'make big bank'...do not doubt that.

Every culture throughout human history has recognized the 'Trickster' element in us. (And has usually links this 'quality' with an animal behavior - usually the Fox. (See Note #1, below.)

But...what's going on in 2016, America? Bleak days and dark nights. Confusion, anger. Blame and blaming abound, but no time to look close. Hands are wrung and spirits flagg. Ma'il, the Navaho trickster coyote, lopes over far hills. Loki the Norse trickster smirks. Irish Leprechauns giggle and hide their little pointy teeth. Hawaiian Menehune...well, they bark in disbelief how easy the sheep fall.

Look closely. Do you SEE Trump's 'shadow' in what's happening now? Many peoples in many times and places have seen and named what is Trump.

A fitting time for Trump, The Orange Flash,'Original Player' ('Orangish Pimpin') to go out to prey... constantly changing costumes from one to another of the Trickster's many forms. As the Navaho 'Ma'il', he sniffs and laughs. As the Norseman's Loki, his nose twitches in the blood on the wind. Trickster presents in all of his forms and masks.

Coyote shivers with happy anticipation. Salivates. His purse snapping open, hungry for gain.

No matter the bleakest day and darkest night, Coyote howls and laughs with delight. Adjusts the night's mask. So much a Player's heart to warm, to fatten the purse with the thin coin of others, so many sheep, so easy.

Life is Good for Orangish Pimpin'. Game is on. The 80s are forgotten and left to the past...so much P..ssy to grope. (They'll get over those awkward tapes, especially with the sacrificial lamb slaughtered and consumed, 'Thank you, Billy'.)

Hear! If, you haven't yet figured it out, Trump is a true Jungian Archetype. America's 'Treasure' from tiny feet and hands to flaming crop. (Maybe more, the Leprechaun, but that's a matter of opinion.)

He's America's 'Trickster" from the deepest dark corners of the human psyche. He's the midnight rider wearing many masks and riding his choice from many of his 'Caballos' (his Vodou horses).

Believe and be 'woke', this 'Trump' is dark s...t ('Stuff', not), and what is seen is not real. And what is revealed is not all. He's good. What 'Orisha' is presenting through Trump depends on what gain is possible and what 'Trick' is in play.

Some of Trickter's other masks are:

Huli jing (Fox spirit) and Nezha and Red Boy (China), Sun Wukong (Monkey King)Raven (British Columbia Cheyenne), Huehuecoyotl (Aztec), Menehune & Kapua (Hawaiian), San Martin Txiki (Basque), Iktomi (Lakota)...

And there is the terrifying, bloody-mouthed 'Papa' Legba (Baron Samedi)' (Haiti Vodou and Santera).

America knows these names, tho' we have learned to keep them from our conscious thoughts...such is the power of assimilation. But they are names logged into the collective memories of the great American cultural melting pot.

Learn these names, America, they belong to our collective heritages, the heritages we;ve been taught to forget...to our loss. Learn them again, they will help us to understand who or what is mugging us in the future, maybe as soon as tomorrow.

To us, in the 21st Century, Trump is the 'Original Player'. He is the 'trick bag' and takes nothing seriously, flouting society's norms, and laughing at our inconsequential complaining with his posturing and fakery.

America, since campaigning started, haven't you seen enough of Trump's moves to recognize the Con? What is it that you can't see? Can't believe? Can it be possible that what's troubling is 'the nature of Trump's game'? Is that 'What's troubling us? "Baaa".

And on these dark nights in America, Coyote lopes on and over the hills. Howling, Laughing with anticipatory delight, Life so breezy, So many sheep, So easy.

Notes:
1/ "Trickster" Names in Global and Historical Culture:

Ma'il and ánti’įhnii (Navaho),'Renard' (French}, Loki (Norse), Scratch (Anglo Saxon), Kokopelli and Iwutstiku (Hopi), Brer' Rabbit (Uncle remus, African-American), Orishas red-cloaked Elegua and Chango(Afro-Yoruba-Cuban), Anansi (Ghana, Caribbean), Morgan Le Fay (Welsh), Eris (classical Greece), Laverna (Roman), Leprechaun and Lugh and Lugh Chromain (Celtic, Ireland)

There are many more.

Election 2016: Did Trump Really Put "Nasty Woman" Out There? The Donald be Gaming? For Sure. (Or, The Advent of Hip-Hop Politics). Plus, 'Watch out for Them Chickens, GOP'ers, - After Defunding and Watering Down National Education, They Do Come Home to Roost'

Did the Donald really put "Nasty Woman" on Hillary? Yup he did!. At Debate 3 of election 2016 (held in 'Vegas', no less), Donald Trump (aka DT ('The Donald'), aka OP ('Orange Pimpin'), aka 'Scratch' aka 'The Vegas Flash') described Hillary Clinton as a 'Nasty Woman'.

And Donald Trump's future after-election rape, er' 'reaping', of mega-profits from his Presidential 'run' will surely happen, especially helped along with that 'Nasty' thing. And American media-culture will cooperate fully (and get it's share of profits, of course).

Thema:
With "Nasty Woman", DT has 'done did it'. He has introduced into American politics a new meme ("Nasty") and inaugurated (his only inauguration) a new American politico-cultura era - an era where heretofore serious American Presidential politics is now melded with pop culture (R&B, Disco-Hip-Hop and soul)...and made American politics easily accessible to and 'Grokked' (also made vulnerable?) by the watered down (dumbed down?) American intellect.

Listen closely and learn, GOP'ers, 'watch out for them chickens - after defunding and generally ignoring national education, they do come home to roost'.

"Nasty Woman". What? Mercy! Heavens! What did he say? Wha' he say? 'He say What?' That boy crazzah! Ole Scratch done did it again!!

My,my! But is what's bothering 'us' (the Media and some viewers and readers) the nature of Trumps game?

Really, OP is just a left-over, over-tinted, disco prince from the 80s. So "Nasty Woman" (ref. Janet Jackson's hit single, 'Nasty' on her 1986 hit album, 'Control') has been imbedded in his skull just waiting to slide on out at an appropriate moment. Of course, to give 'props' to Prince and 'Vanity 6' (1982),Nasty Girl' should also be referenced. (Unlike now, OP was a 'biiiig' player in the 80s when he was friends with all the Players (Bros, too) in lower and upper Manhattan!) Now, of course, his playing is done at his WPB digs...at least in public.

But 'retorno a thema'. Predictably, that Debate-3 'Trump moment'(as, master gamer that he is, he no doubt intended) has caused much turmoil in America. And for OP the turmoil he causes means 'bank' - the Media is in frenzy and there is an outcry from the women's movement. (And Janet Jackson is salivating over the coming sales from the resurrection of 'Nasty". 'OP' sees much coin coming down the slot.

Most ironically, 'Nasty', combined with Janet's album, 'Control', must have been a double-coded message to OP's 'Yuge' following of womens:

'What' say you DT haters? Word, nay - OP is talking to his women, who are all women who deserve respect,
'I, DT, the 'OP' am speaking in code to you womens,...what your ears hear as dissing this lovely lady facing me is really 'props' to all fem-hood, 'Word' again! (And let's make 'Monay', my dears.)

So, let's not jump hasty. Give 'OP' some slack for again out thinking the herd. ...and keeping his eye on what is real in all of this...that 'Monay'! The OP does not never let go of focus, learn that. Especially for just a 450,000 (USD) Washington, DC gig...when there is much more to the game for a smart Player. And OP is that.

With 'Nasty', DT spoke from the heights of his genius (or in ADHD condition on all cylinders ... or whatever health or substance issue has made for his sniffles).

In that exalted state, 'OP' spoke both to the squares, and in code for all the Players, when he laid 'Nasty Woman' on Hillary. Creds, 'OP'! OP was not speaking to Hillary Clinton but to send the message to his posse to watch and learn.

Note well, Players and grasshoppers, debutantes, Marco Rubio and other GOP 'masks', this blogger used 'DT' then 'OP'. (Who knows what or who speaks from those heights, but put it together.)

Now, no major-demographic male uses 'Nasty Woman' and carries it off except for Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson - both of whom have earned much 'cred' for living real all their lives - and having too much sense to run for President, despite they have no fears of anything life can throw at them,. (RIP and respect, Johnny.)

But DT is allowed space on using this word because he has shown much courage to actually run for President while he was unprepared, no experience in public office and generally speaking, unqualified.

But DT has done himself proper by chasing away the GOP 99% establishment, highjacking the party, laying out almost no 'Monay' and generally having a most good time doing all these things - in other words, righteously 'representing' all players and down-with-it'nasty women' (all 'nasty women' think on that). For these accomplishments, DT has to be recognized as a genuine 'Player'. ('Props' to you, DT. i.e., BOP aka Big Orange Pimpin')')

Now BOP is a bit grey in the temples to 'Ball' with the bros, but with 'Nasty' he let us know he's still got 'game'!

As for "Nasty".

With'Nasty', DT was shaking a flag to all his fellow 'Players':

"Hey, no biggy, Wiggy, here's word to let ya' know your boy is in tha' house..and rocking out...these clowns (with a JB rhythm riff). After this small time farce, let's go for a 'yac attack' and do some real partying. What say we shake it down away from this small time money, while we think on making this politics thing into some real 'Monay'. ('I got a lead on some big bank about starting a media company after the November day")

With "Nasty", DT has opened the gate to let in a new meme and introduced a new American politico-cultura era - an era where heretofore serious American playtime, Presidential politics, is melded with pop culture and made accessible (also vulnerable?) to the watered down (dumbed down?) American intellect. GOP chickens, defunding national education, come home to roost.

But back to BOP's game. BOP got much media coverage without spending hardly anything. Plus, he guaranteed he won't be elected - all of this is part of BOP's 'Master Plan' to maximize the after-election profits from his Play in 'The President Game'.

BOP's after-election rape, er' reaping', of mega-profits from his Presidential 'run' will happen, American media-culture will make sure of it.

Election 2016: Trump as Performance: Operas Buffa (Falstaff ) and Tragedy (Lear) With Some Gatsby Thrown In - Starring Villains and Buffoons, and Wolves and Lambs, and Despots and Martyrs.....but Few Genuine Heroes (Except Warren and Sanders Who Were Squeezed Out Like Good Money)

I've found a new style device for lazy bloggers - repeating at the beginning of a post, the post's conclusion after stream-of-consciousness drafting (because I'm not a professional writer).

Is it appropriate to say that Donald Trump is a 'retro-1920s-Gatsby ala F Scot Fitzgerald'?

I kind of buy into this comparison. Trump can sometimes seem a 'modern' Gatsby because of his 'flash' and glitzy 'armament' which he is not shy to boast about. But this 'retro-ness' is not a true synthesis of current and Gatsbyan types because he has carried out the Gatsbyan charade for so long without crashing. (But Trump's financial reality might reveal that DT is indeed a reincarnate Gatsby, who knows?)

But where DT does resemble Fitzgerald's 'Gatsby' is DT's quality of 'superfluosity ....an even exaggerated superfluosity marked by glitzy, overdone tastes in material possessions (large, 'neo-pharonic' buildings) and blonde, superficially adorned, physically endowed women who he touts for all to hear about... even when he is describing his own daughter. Yet all these outward signs of success carry with them, or emit, a somewhat 'off' fragrance like a person wearing a not-quite fitted suit, purchased bespoke from a good, though not top tier, tailor. Also, a person wearing a strange, ill-fit, badly dyed hairpiece that turns out to be real hair!

This might sound unfair and a bit unkind so I will end this introduction to the Preface by saying, 'Just as some complain about the seeming plastic, impervious surface Hillary presents and compare her lack of projection with Trump's 'out-there-for-all-to-see', we don't really know who lives inside Trump's bluster and energy...but from what is implied, if there is something beneath Trump's flash and glitz, there might not be much to like...and much to run from in abject fear. DT might make for good literature but let not him become President...that's too real for comfort.

And, just as, for some, Hillary appears to be emotionally monochromatic, Trump appears to have successfully substituted money for morality...or maybe, just as likely, Trump didn't have to substitute for morality because morality was maybe never there.

All of this is to say that this election, taken willy-nilly with no regard for consequences, is highly entertaining like a retro Louis-Schmelling heavyweight boxing match of the 1930s. But this election also seems simultaneously vacuous and lacking in substance - this election lacks an energy of vision that a thinking person can bite into, and yet the stakes are so high:

we can't seem to free ourselves from special interests (profitable status quo corporations) to tackle global climate warming with threat of rising sea levels flooding significant portions of all coasts; America's up-to-the-neck self-entrapment in an out-of-date and endangering oil economy (and energy base), our racial impasse, our Congressional paralysis left-over from the Civil War (no, from the pre-Civil War, Clay-Calhoun states' rights debates that were never resolved, etc.

It seems that after 160 years America hasn't been able to shake off it's demons that caused the Civil War and has prevented America from moving on. Kindly speaking, Trump represents going back to the 1830's and reclaiming states rights (embodied in the 'Alt-Right' catch-bag of neo-confederate, hooded thug, revisionists who have glombed onto Trump like roaches around rotten meat).

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton seems to represent continuing 'partnering'('coddling'?) of government cozying up to big banks and big corporations - just about anything big and making money. Let's hope a 'mandate'election win for her will free Hillary from these chains.

Meanwhile, the interests of working America are stuck in a no-man's land yet America has little time and maybe no remaining chances to resolve this problem.

PREFACE:
First, I am an opera fan and despite my 'run-now!' aversion to TD (Tricky Dick), "Nixon in China" (Adams, 1987) is an opera I like very much. (My fav operas are "Norma" (Bellini, 1831) with of course Joan Sutherland, and Mozart's (1786) "Marriage of Figaro". In a good year, I can enjoy a 'Der Ring..')

But to the point of this, I see real opera material in the tragi-comedic figure of Donald Trump. What might be a title for an opera about Trump? Hmmmm, maybe ...'Vice is Nice but Retribution is like a Tidal Wave', ...or something. Trump will someday be an American literary tragi-hero, if he is not elected, or if elected, an American icon of a post-modern monster...as his hypothetical Presidency will so f...k up the world... (that's just the way Trump rolls).

So on to this 'thing' ("Thing' being a memic, Bush I word that this 2016 election process seems to have resurrected from the '80s).

So, here it is, the repeated 'finale', and of course it's all about Donald Trump who this blogger feels is an iconic, living fossil, example of 20th Century Americana at this stage of its decline, or at its cusp of a needed self-transformation whose occurrence is yet to fade away unconsummated. Note: this blog post has lain in draft form for more than a month because I felt it's premise, that Donald Trump is a genuine American comedic-tragedy - a Falstaffian Fool, yes, but more, a genuine 'American Psycho-Bright Lights- Ellisian-McInerny character flesh-rendered from the '80s,...and destined (doomed) to walk amongst us as a modern, living, walking, sniffin' (Debate #1) tragedy. And Trump is easily recognized - from his actual 1980s, days of sparkle and libido - as a shadow character in Tom Wolfe's, 'Bonfire of the Vanities' (1987). Trump is real, just 30 years out of date - he really believes his 'style' of 'courtship' is ....what ever he believes.

And if G.. is kind, 'It' will find the time and inclination to save America from a Trump Presidency.

This article's conclusion, post-Debate #1:

Trump (The Donald, DT, OD (Our Donald),'Scratch' (from Stephen Vincent Benet's 1936,'The Devil and Dan Webster') is a post-modern, but time-revisted Shakespeare-Quixotish-Rabelaisian-Shelley-Bram Stokerish monster-buffon ala Falstaff, Pantagruel,Sancho Panza and straight-man sidekick Don Quixote, Shelley's monster, Henry !V and V, Count Dracula,Philip K Dickian lamenting cyborg,and the all-time modern monster-tragedy icon - Richard Don't-kick-me-again-but-if-you-must-I-know-how-you-feel-I'm-such-a-fool-mama-said Nixon). Buffoonish and over-exaggerated but at the same time tragically out of date and worse, worth attention from our entertainment-warped culture that morphs serious sh..t with laughs.

Donald Trump, or should one say, 'Trumpism, (or maybe both) will be discussed and parsed for many years to come. One could guess that future times will look back on 'Trump' as the nadir of American or even global politics before the renaissance of government for the people, or 'Trump' will be seen as the peak of American capitalist-democracy, or democratic capitalism, before the Great Fall. Writing about the Trump phenomenon is as challenging a struggle as Trump himself is to 'see' clearly - he is this or that, seemingly changeable at a moment's notice ..or with no notice or logical pre-disposition. Trump is as close to an embodiment of the neither-here-nor-there 'Cheshire Cat' as anything yet seen outside of a theoretical physics construct.

So, after one of Trump's non-sensical detours from normalcy ('normalcy' being, relatively speaking for Mr Trump, only a bit less scary than full on psychotic), one is driven to ask,

'Is Trump real?'

To that self-posed question, one is also self-driven to respond,

'Trump is as real as I feel about him ight now, but I don't know how I might feel about him tomorrow,... but probably worse.'

So,after this preamble, this lead-in to what is almost universally acknowledged (despite harsh disagreements about the person) about Trumpism being a genuine and significant American phenomenon, this blogger comes to the nub of this post:

'Trump' and all the irrational trappings surrounding the person - the lore, exaggerations, psychological analyses and theories about him and about his supporters and his non-supporters-but-tolerators, and about his country and about his culture and about his political-economic backdrop,...Trumpism as embodied by Donald Trump the person, is and will be for a looo-ong time a fertile compost of 'guano' (a pile of bird shit for political satirists) or the highest quality 'Green Thumb Fertilizer' for the boutique gardener of the left (i.e., Ivy League scholars and psycho-analysts), or the rallying cry of the (cranially deformed, hmmm shouldn't say that), ecstatic-drenched extreme right. Take your choice.

There will be plays, songs, short stories, off-broadway pieces, and lengthy (serious) works created to express the inner wonderment many thinkers will hve for Trump the man and Trumpism of which Donald Trump is but one minor god's badly or well-done creative example, depending on one's point-of-view.

But only a few of future devotees and scholars will clearly understand how Trump and Trumpism is all of 'us'. 'Us' being the totality of America - our nation, our culture(s), regions and each person residing in America.

How every person residing in America, legal and illegal, contributes in deed or story to our collective esprit and body. As an example, it is fitting for a discussion of 'Trumpism' to mention illegal immigrants are demonized by Trump (supposedly demonized, if one is to go only by his words rather than by who he hires to do the gardening and cooking at his Florida mansion); yet these supposedly (in the Trumpian world) extraneous, worthless and demon-folk play significant and mostly positive roles in the portrayal of America's cultural memes, i.e., the illegal immigrants of especially Mexican origin have a somewhat 'uber' work ethic ...which in America is comical!

So, to the finale: Trump (The Donald, DT, OD (Our Donald),'Scratch' (from Stephen Vincent Benet's 1936,'The Devil and Dan Webster') a post-modern, but time-revisted Shakespeare-Shelley-Bram Stokerish monster (Falstaff, Shelley's monster, Henry !V and V, Count Dracula,Philip K Dickian's lamenting cyborgs ('Blade Runner' ex 'Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?',and the all-time modern monster-tragedy icon - Richard Don't-kick-me-again-but-if-you-must-I-know-how-you-feel-I'm-such-a-fool-mama-said Nixon.

Election 2016: "Deplorable": Hillary Clinton Tags Trump with a Word from the Heartland (Trump as 'Old Scratch')

“Deplorable". Hillary Clinton called out DTrump as "Deplorable". And it is a righteous thing.

With this seemingly simple word spoken as from an Iowa front porch, though now claimed as cleverly chosen, Hillary Clinton tagged Donald Trump as a "Deplorable' (SOB). And DT will wear it like the Devil, whom Dan’l Webster debated in the classic American short story, wears "Scratch" The Devil and Daniel Webster, (1936, Stephen Vincent Benet),. Indeed, DTrump is deplorable and DTrump should, as well, wear the tag, "Scratch". Besides, Keith Olbermann calls Trump, a "Demonic Messiah"!

Why has 'deplorable' emerged from the cloud-mass of seemingly-ordinary American vocabulary to cause such consternation in the DT camp (no longer properly referable to as 'Republican' because DT chased the bulk of Republicans, as we've known them since Nixon, out and away from their cozy, pork barrel (and lobbyist-golden parachute) 'public service' nests and to Hell where they stand in trembling fear and confusion.

And why is there in Hillary's camp a growing nodding among her doubters and cheering among her constant supporters? (Read Murfster35's piece in the DailyKos webzine.)

For starters, look at the symptoms resulting from tagging DT with "Deplorable" - the confused running in circles of her opponents. Even Mike Pence, Trump's choice for running-mate and knee-jerk to the alt-right, can't seem to find a comeback to 'Deplorable'...and this blogger has a theory 'why' - truth (Hillary's use of 'Deplorable') can't be rebutted by DT-Pence's blatant falsity or anything from anyone else in the bastardized, neo-Repub party.

And, BTW, who is Mike Pence? And, what is the 'Alt-right'?

Here are Trump and Pence in a recent but classic and appropriate 'Abbott and Costello' pose where the question is, as was with Abbot and Costello in their 1940s comedy films, 'Who's the real dummy?'):

And here is Abbot and Costello from the 1940s, (What a resemblance!):

Again,'Who's the real dummy?


Some features of Mike Pence the Indiana governor, probably chosen for the gleam on his eye shutters that he robbed from an Indiana mule, 'Mike Pence slowly learning his political future is dead':

And what is 'alt-right? It is, in an abbreviated list:

alt-right is a segment of right-wing ideologies presented as an alternative to mainstream conservatism in the United States.[1][2] It has been described as a movement unified by support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump,[3][4] as well as by opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.[2][5]

The alt-right has no official ideology, although various sources have said that it is associated with white nationalism,[1][2][6] white supremacism,[3][7][8] antisemitism,[1][2][9] right-wing populism,[6] nativism,[10] and the neoreactionary movement.[7][11]

And this is the 'APB" on the Trump-highjacked Republican Party...where 'Scratch'(DT) runs the show.

So, let's start to refer to DTrump as, "Scratch', the bald-liar One that Dan'l Webster successfully argued against.

But now to the point of all this.

As a top achieving Yale Law grad (after a Wellesley BA, for god’s sake) and wife of a two term President and a two term Secretary of State under another two term President, Hillary Clinton surely had a vast vocabulary at her command to use to pin DTrump ('Scratch') like a fly to a wall.

Instead Hillary used, in the first hour or so after hearing it, what sounded like a harmless sounding descriptor, “Deplorable’.

What? Was that the best Hillary could come up with...and what exactly was Hillary about, "Deplorable" seems so out of place in today’s charged media atmosphere? But after a few more hours, ‘deplorable’ still hung around one’s brain and it’s power began to take shape...and indeed, ‘deplorable’ continues to grow in force.

What is it about ‘Deplorable’ that makes it hang and swell in the air?

It is that ‘Deplorable’ speaks from the ‘Heartland’ of America, as from a current Dan’l Webster or in the manner of Joseph Welch who called out Joe McCarthy, “have you no sense of decency...” in the McCarthy-Army hearings of 1954 — McCarthy Hearings, 1954).

"Deplorable' speaks from the language base which the 'Trumpists', and all of America, knows and responds to. 'Scratch' could, and can never use words of that kind of truth because he and his minions are through and through False, fake surface dross.

“Deplorable’ strips Trump to nakedness and renders with a finality him and his behavior as unworthy to stand among responsible adults. No wonder Pence tries awkwardly, but unsuccessfully, to dance away and around that seemingly simple term because ’Deplorable’ rings as authentically American, and Scratch is not authentic — at best Scratch is a clown, a fool, even.

DTrump was called out in the olde language of America’s regions - East, West, South and North...and has been named as 'Scratach' who merits no place among responsible adults and all Americans. Hillary Clinton tagged the Devil.