Search for trump truth

In search of Trump truth in the room where it happened?

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton, a long time Republican Party strategist and FOX contributor, has written a book about his days in the White House. Whatever I think of his beliefs, Bolton has a reputation for honestly speaking his mind. And, as a Harvard educated lawyer, he certainly knows he cannot publish anything which can be fact-checked away or violates “national security’. For a variety of reasons I will not attempt to read the book. Pre-publication publicity excerpts, however, would be hard to miss.

It might be easier to write this book off as “fiction” if what we hear was the only, or even first, exposure to the world of he of self-proclaimed “great and unmatched wisdom”. It is neither the first, nor by any stretch of the imagination the only such narrative. At some point the sum total of witness cannot be denied simply because it goes against what we want to believe, nor accepted because it does.

And so I add John Bolton to my list begun some years ago of credible accounts of what kind of character this Trump is.

When he came down the escalator, trophy wife in tow, based on his past exposures I had already made up my mind I’d met men like this all my life. To confirm what I wanted to believe, I suppose, began collecting notes of things said by others with much closer connection than I who ‘had no dog in the fight’.

More or less in the order I collected them, this is my list to date:

British Broadcasting Corp. 2015 documentary on business failures, unethical practices, and mob infiltration of the Trump business.

Public Broadcasting Service’s “Frontline” biographies of candidates aired during 2016 primary season.

Canada’s Toronto Star politically neutral newspaper which quit counting his false statements after some 2,000+ because it required too many man-hours.

Two Pulitzer Prize winning authors who covered and wrote about New York business scene since 1980s – both of whom Trump had to settle with and pay costs for law suits he had initiated. One of these men, David Cay Johnson, has publicly challenged Trump to him for accusing Trump of profiting from his mob connections by allowing his airplane to transport illegal drugs.

Interviews with three actual New York city Real Estate developers; one of whom I heard say “everybody in the New York real estate business knew he was a liar. He would look at his watch and lie about the time of day just to keep in practice”.

Legally recorded public documentation showing Deutsche Bank loans ‘co-signed’ by Russian oligarch with suspected ties to Russian mafia.

Ghost writer of “Art of the Deal” Tony Schwartz.

At least seven current books by eyewitness to White House conduct; including Bob Woodward, award winning co-author of articles which led to President Nixon’s resignation.

Confirmed reports of criticisms by multiple insiders, with firings of or threats to fire anyone revealed as criticizing.

Two investors making millions by assuming we were being lied to about Covid-19.

Over 100 respected psychiatrists who, out of sense of a “Duty to Warn”, risked reputation and license to publish and speak out about Trump as “clear and present danger”.

Harvard Psychology Professor stated one particular tweet made by any other person was legal grounds for 72-hour ‘involuntary hold’ for neurological and psychological examination.

Official authorized Biographer working on retainer.

“The Room Where it Happened” by John Bolton.

Also, published and broadcast firsthand witness descriptions including:

“erratic”
“corrupt”
“paranoid”
“disruptive”
“adolescent”
“narcissistic”
“incompetent”
“dysfunctional”
“habitual” or “pathological” liar
“threat to the Constitution”

Notes to those reading this far (if any!)

These are experiences of multiple independent witnesses over a period of years. Any one could be wrong, they cannot all be false. Similar accumulations of testimony has been enough to convict more than one offender. Not liking, or not agreeing, is not an argument; nor is attacking an unrelated third party.

In “Julius Caesar” Shakesphere has Marc Anthony say: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones” Question: what good has Trump done which will be remembered favorably by history? If you know of one I’ll start a new list. While waiting for that I will be checking out what Bolton has to say about the evil men do.

For more on my original observation see February 2^nd blog “I’ve known wolves like this all my life”.

https://blogsbythedaddy.blogspot.com/2020/02/ive-known-wolves-like-this-all-my-life.html

Main Stream Media

So, Which is the “Main Stream Media” We Hear So Much About?

The first broadcast of a morning news show was January 14, 1952. It was the Today Show with host-creator Dave Garroway, who believed television could find an audience for news at 6 AM. Only nine at the time, I probably remember watching for two reasons: TV was new to us and I was fascinated there was somebody on TV named David. Also, my father was an admirer of Garroway, and I was an admirer of by father. Some years later (I forget exactly) the Today Show did a survey and found the average viewer only watched for about 15 minutes, and programming adjusted accordingly.

In 1956 NBC was alone in the TV market when starting its first half-hour national news show. At the time there was some question as to whether there actually was enough news to fill that much time. CBS, then the only other TV network, was still doing a half-hour evening newscast. To be sure they could fill the time the broadcast featured two anchors, Chet Huntley in New York and David Brinkley from D.C. Soon this half-hour approach was copied by CBS with one anchor in New York. Walter Cronkite. ABC came much later. Apparently by evenings there was enough news to keep audience attention for a half-hour.

The world and market changed. Today we have our pick of three Broadcast Network news, each has their own 2-hour morning “show”. They also have half-hour evening news with 60 seconds for each story chosen for importance out of thousands of credible, conformable thousands which come across the Internet every hour (which have to be sorted out from the pure baloney).

There are also now three Cable News choices. And, yes, there is something called Bloomberg Business News, but we don’t get it. With those I do get my experience has been that left on mute, if it is actually important, they all carry about the same stories. Sorting them out, of course, according to their own criteria. Mostly I look for anchors seen on real TV for years, or ones I just like (reminding me of my daughter helps).

On June 1, 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the first 24-hour cable news operation. The business model was to contract with local stations, giving CNN the world’s first instant nationwide coverage. Being solely dedicated to news, it became the reliable source for news on cable TV.

Since its sale by Ted Turner in 1996 to news-neutral AT&T, CNN has lost ground. It has suffered from both loss of local contracts due to rise of FOX and MSNBC, and the general diffusion of available advertising revenue due to rise of Internet. Also, viewers may have been lost over last few years because of CNN factually reporting what trump says and does, which may make CNN seem progressive.

In 1996 Australian media mogul Rufford Murdock established FOX News. FOX has a publicly stated business model of promoting “conservative” schema; using “news” as a baseline for such advancement. According to public information and former employees, under Roger Ailes and the Murdock family the news became subordinate to the schema. As Murdock does in England and Australia, programming is targeted at an audience which only wants that side of the story. It is this audience and business model which FOX presents to prospective advertisers.

MSNBC also began in 1996 as a partnership with Microsoft, to whom the network provides a news feed. It floundered at first in finding an audience, attempting to compete with FOX. It finally found a niche market in a “progressive” viewership, while retaining some of its original conservative journalist. This was a marketing and financial decision, and subsequent programming resulted.

Thus, we end up with EVERY news station having to assume they only have limited time, will have new audience every half-hour, and have to pick out the stories which will retain their audience’s attention and produce the ratings needed to make the only thing that counts: PROFIT.

So, which is the “main stream media” we hear so much about?

Perfect Storm odyssey

a ‘Perfect Storm’ odyssey

by David L Lewis

The Ship of State sailed unhindered upon every sea.

Of all Ships and States the leader she’d always be.

Came a pretender skipper who’d never sailed or led.

He rented the great Ship with motives still unsaid.

From the west, quietly an invisible storm gathered.

While seething waves awoke, the ship soon hazarded.

Storms brewed, warnings sent, it can’t be that bad.

There were passengers to impress, profit to be had.

The novel skipper blissful of all outside the ship,

Denied any truth which might dare deviate his trip.

Obtuse leadership failing at hour of greatest need.

Public health forfeited to lure of political greed.

Strength strengthening strength, named it Pandemic.

Pouring out on earth, suffering and death prolific.

To avoid sorrow society did what it always must do.

We shut down our lives, many sacrifice for the few.

Most precarious economy in 90 years quickly folded.

Built on spending and debt, it was soon overloaded.

Forty-million furloughed, paid to live in one room.

At home we learned to connect by Tweet and by Zoom.

Slowly began re-openings, free to do something new.

Jobs not re-opening, freedoms meant not much to do.

Thus was formed the conflagration for a generation.

Almost unseen, combining storms reached combustion.

The Spark came with shameful death of one lone man,

Fueled by an idea whose time had come; storm began.

Spring weather, noble cause, fast winds of the Net.

Peaceful demonstrators, invaded by an evil mindset.

Unrest, absent since the 60’s, turned another tide.

A perfect storm soon overflowed barriers worldwide.

Storms reveal in skippers both the weak and strong.

The strong take responsibility for what goes wrong.

But this pretender skipper again did rant and rave.

Ignore deadly wind, he alone could calm every wave.

Battle Stations, load the guns, dominate the field.

To truth or facts pretender skippers can not yield.

All storms pass, but there is always more to story.

Preventable loss buried, any good papered in glory.

Voyages end, ships re-arm, sail again to face harm.

Who will helm our ship during a next perfect storm?

..an odyssey to be continued?

Cop & I

The Cop and I

Grew up white in 1950’s America, in a world which never was and never will be again.

In that world ‘peace’ was defined as absence of “the War”. Prosperity defined as having a home in St. Louis, Missouri; where they had “the best school system in the State”. And, the policeman was the man you could always count on if lost or had a problem.

The closest I came to being ‘hassled by the cops’ was about age 14. A bunch of us were walking home from playing baseball (come to think of it, a couple of us were carrying bats). A police car pulled up and an officer said he wanted to talk to us. 

There had been some crime by a boy about our age. Actually, in the eighteen years we lived in that neighborhood I only heard of two crimes: One robbery-murder and this kid-vandalism thing.

Where were we going? Where did we live? Where were we last night? Stuff like that.

For whatever reason I drew an absolute blank on where I was last night. This effectively meant I was the only one of group in whom the good officer had much interest. I did know my address, phone number, and my parent’s name; just not what I did last night. [I had to go with my sister to her music lesson – apparently not something paramount in the mind of a 14-year old boy.]

And that was it. To this day I do not know whether my parents were called; or even if they ever caught the vandal. Surely there could have been more to the story.

     What if it hadn’t been the 50’s, when America was so ‘great’?

     What if it hadn’t been north St. Louis when crime was rare?

     What if my parents had taught me the police were the enemy?

     What if I was lone black boy with a bat in the year of our Lord two-thousand-twenty?

Life is what it is, your part of the story is the part you know.

June 6 Longest Day

The Longest Day

[updated from May 30 2011 blog for The Brazil Times]

In the Tuesday June 2, 2020 edition of The Brazil Times is the story of World War II hero Don Huber. He was one of at least four Brazil young men who long ago went to war and by pure coincidence all landed on the beaches of Normandy France on June 6, 1944.

On June 6, 1944 the Allies launched some 10,000 airplanes, 5,000 vessels carrying 160,000 troops in the largest amphibious assault that ever, or will ever happen in human history. Everyone knew they were coming, no one knew where they were going. Of only one battle is it said America lost more men, Gettysburg. And there were no computers.

In my now 20 years living in Indiana I have had the privilege of meeting three men who went ashore at Normandy, France in those long days of June, 1944.

The first was Bob Moore, who was owner-director of Moore Funeral Home when I knew him. Bob knew everyone in and everything about Clay County, remembered them and it all, and was always a man you could go to learn.

His son, Rob Moore, sent me this information about his father’s service in France:

“Dad was part of a large field hospital -- he worked in the lab as a lab technician.  His field hospital was sent in to Normandy the day after the initial invasion, but hit a mine and sank.  He worked in small aid units until another field hospital could be shipped across the Channel to Normandy.  They moved across France with the Allied forces.  He ended up working in a field hospital the U.S. Army had set-up in a large church on a hill in Belgium.  During the Battle of the Bulge, they could look out the windows of the church and down on the road that split and went around the hill where they watched German forces first move forward, and then back as they retreated.”

The second man was also someone you’d never think a soldier, Norman J. Hunt, PhD. A more unassuming, gentler man it would be hard to imagine. If the simile can be borne, he is one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever met.

A May 2004 article in The Brazil Times well summed up Norman Hunt, saying in part:  “Today, Norman Hunt, Ph.D., a retired professor of psychology, is a man of slight build and white hair. He is a gentleman in the old-fashioned and best sense of the word, a gentleman made, not broken, by his D-Day experience.” 

The last man, whom I never actually met other than his presentation at a History Society meeting, was Warren Nicosin of Easy Company, 506^th Regiment, 101st Airborne. As it is with old soldiers, vivid memory of those long days -- slight doubt was ever that young. If you want to know of such men, next time it is on TV watch the series called “Band of Brothers” about Easy Company. Niscosin was among those involved in securing Berchtesgarden, Hitler’s mountain hideaway. He brought home a Nazi flag from “the wolf’s lair” which is on display at the History Society Museum in Brazil.

No one planned it. The progression of dates is a purely coincidental product of times and people born and died generations apart. It is, however, intriguing that Memorial Day, set aside to honor our fallen, and D-Day, the day of the world’s greatest single battle, come in such proximity. Maybe it is so in order to assure we not forget that not all are men of war who live and die on the longest days; but all who serve, serve.

Sunday in Brazil after facist scare

Copied from The Brazil Times

SUNDAY IN BRAZIL, MAY 31, 2020

The City of Brazil was targeted on social media sites over the weekend by organizers of an event supposed to honor the memory of George Floyd. But the protest march announced to begin Sunday, May 31, at 6 p.m. at Craig Park was not going to be peaceful. As a flyer and posts on Facebook and other social media sites invited “protesters,” the plan was to incite violence as quickly as possible by “breaking every window” in town while walking from the park to Wal-Mart. However, no demonstrtation and no violence erupted.

Local law enforcement officials confirmed that the Clay County 911 Dispatch Center was inundated with calls from the public wanting to report concerns for the community, local businesses, and law enforcement officers.

“This had to be taken seriously,” said Assistant Police Chief Dennis Archer, who confirmed the Brazil Police Department worked in conjunction with the Clay County Sheriff’s Department to beef up a police presence in the city Sunday night. “We reached out to the Indiana State Police, who was dealing with situations in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, and they sent officers here too.”

The BPD, CCSD, ISP, and members of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, as well as many other departments, were in the area, providing patrols and manpower well into the night.

“A peaceful protest is never a problem, that is their right, and we live in America,” said Archer, who understands the passion many feel about the injustice of how George Floyd died while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police. “We will help facilitate a safe event for them if they want to have a protest march here, but if there is criminal activity, we have to intervene.”

The biggest reason, Archer explained, there are not enough resources in rural communities to regulate a volatile situation if one occurred, even if it were only a hundred people.

“This is guilt by association situation. An officer did something wrong, and because we are law enforcement officers in a different state, to many, we are a target for that frustration,” said Archer. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We are doing our jobs for our community. We are doing it now to make sure everyone is safe.”

Thankfully no incidents of violence or mischief were reported along main street Monday morning.As thousands of people took to the streets in at least 75 cities nationwide, and peaceful protests about the injustice of a black man’s death gave way to violence, destruction, and chaos in larger cities. Something different happened in Brazil Sunday. The Times reporter at the scene shares the experience of how a group of people, who all wanted to remain anonymous because this wasn’t about one person or one opinion, they took a post on the main street of their hometown to stand watch together.

United We Stand...

As the patrols began along US 40, State Road 340, and around Craig Park, people also took to the streets.

Groups of motorcycles were also “cruising,” many wearing the colors of various groups – some Christian cyclists, veteran motorcycle groups, and even a few friendly groups of concerned citizens. But there were also several members of local “motorcycle gangs” wearing their colors while “helping to patrol” the roads.

“This is our hometown. We are all out here because we love this place. Our families and friends live here. Our kids go to school here,” said one anonymous rider who stopped at a gas station to fill up before returning to his volunteer patrol duty. “I’m not going to let someone put our small town on a terrorist’s list like that. I’m not here to start trouble. None of are. But no one is going to come here with threats to destroy a town and do it in front of all these witnesses. Yes, I’m watching you. I’m here all night if I have to.”

That was a common cause repeated by many of the people posted outside the storefronts along “Main Street.”

“We are not a mob of people causing trouble out here tonight,” said a man, who explained the rationale about remaining anonymous in the vigil. “We are out here helping business owners in our community. Many of these people have spent their lives building their businesses, providing jobs, and serving our community in so many ways. No one is going to threaten our community like that. We are out here to stand for each other too. They aren’t going to attack just one; we’re in this together.”

Those along the road were waving at the carloads of people, walking over to chat with others at a nearby building, making plans to help each other if the need arose.

“You would have to be a moron not to understand why people are upset about the injustice of how a man could die in the streets like that, and a police officer is involved. This is America, that isn’t supposed to happen to anyone. People want to protest to make their voices heard. I’m right there with them. I think everyone out here tonight feels the same way. We would walk with them now of this was a peaceful protest to honor George Floyd’s life, to exact change and make all lives matter,” said a woman, who brought dinner to her family. “The minute violence erupted, this stopped being a protest for change. Now, it’s an excuse for those with criminal intentions to run amuck and be marauders in the streets.”

“When people are grabbing TVs, burning down buildings, beating people, and God knows what else during what is supposed to be something to bring about honest dialog and change, that is no longer honorable,” said one of the family members talking about reports from other cities. “This isn’t what people started to do. Violence has tainted that idea. Until these protests stop, and there’s no reason for the criminal element to be in the streets anymore to stir up trouble, no good can come.”

Some people believe COVID-19 has exacerbated the riots.

“I’ve been cooped up at my house for two months because of COVID-19. I’m out of work, still dealing with unemployment issues, and yes, I hate to admit this, but I don’t know my family all that well. I’ve realized I was living a selfish life, not being a good man in many small ways that didn’t seem to matter before, but should have,” said a man watching the traffic. “We all have a lot of problems, and it isn’t going to be any easier as the future goes on. Why start burning cities down? I just can’t wrap my head around that logic.”

A lot of people were practicing social distancing, but not many were wearing masks Sunday.

“It’s a beautiful day. The Indiana State Health Department says outdoor events are ok for people. Still, I sure wish we could have just gathered out here to spend some positive time together,” said one lady, who was visiting a friend at a nearby apartment complex. “The virus is unsettling because I’m high-risk, but these riots are frightening to me. I remember the 60s and 70s, and I don’t want to see that happen again. None of this will ever be resolved until people understand that all lives matter. All of this that is happening in our nation is only creating the next generation of hate.”

As the start time passed, new meeting sites for the protesters and scouting reports about the regular patrols by law enforcement, were being followed by officials and people on the street.

Others believed it was a hoax but they weren’t taking any chances. Some business owners were planning to spend the night in their businesses.

“If they come in my door tonight, or any night this week, they are going right back out it,” said a local man who admits he has strong opinions.

He went on to say people would stand up for anyone’s right to a peaceful protest.

“There are veterans out here tonight that put the measure of their life on the line for that right,” he said. “Police officers are out here too and don’t you think they don’t put their lives on the line every day. It was one crooked cop, in what seems like a crooked system in one state (responsible for the death of George Floyd.) That state is not Indiana, Yes, it was tragic. My prayers go out to Mr.Floyd’s family and friends. That man’s mother has come out and said this isn’t what her son would want to be remembered by. I know it’s harsh, but as long as these protests continue, they are giving an outlet to morons, like these numbskulls today tried to do here in Brazil, to pillage and destroy.”

“What I’ve seen out here tonight that I think people need to know is this: It’s not a big crowd of people out here, but there is a big cross-section of our community,” said one person. “Every age group is represented and every religious group, all walks of life, veterans, and even a few self-proclaimed hippies. There are Trump supporters, and all the other political inclinations too. Law enforcement and a few other people. This group of people should probably never be in the same place at the same time, and if they were, there would probably be a lively argument, to say the least, but tonight that’s not what happened. The people who live in podunk Brazil came together and got it right for once.”