2/16/2017 News Stuff

MSN - Bloomberg - The New Face of American Unemployment. 

Fox - Federal scientist cooked climate change books ahead of Obama presentation, whistle blower charges. 

Huffington Post - CNN, The ‘Trump Dossier’ and ‘Fake News’. 

Huffington Post - Tim Cook Says Fake News Is ‘Killing People’s Minds’.

MSN - New York Times - Banks Look to Cellphones to Replace A.T.M. Cards. 

The Week - America's spies anonymously took down Michael Flynn. That is deeply worrying. 

MSN - 8 basic income experiments to watch out for in 2017. 

Bloomberg - Monopolies Are Worse Than We Thought. 

MSN - New York Times - White House Plans to Have Trump Ally Review Intelligence Agencies. 

General Flynn, the Intelligence Community and the Logan Act

Wikipedia - The Logan Act

The act states "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

General Flynn had met with a Russian official after Trump had been elected and prior to being made the National Security Advisor. When asked about sanctions against Russia, Flynn reportedly said that he thought Russia should wait before imposing sanctions of it's own until Trump was in office. After much media hoopla, Flynn ended up resigning.

The truth is that the Logan Act is never used to prosecute anyone and is probably not constitutional. The problem for the media will come in the future. By having taken the position that they have they will now have to address the Bilderberg Meetings, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission. These are all meetings where private citizens, including representatives from the New York Times and Bill Clinton prior to his being elected President, attend to negotiate with representatives (elected and non-elected) from foreign countries over laws in secret.

The media has given Trump a bully pulpit to arrest any American for attending those meetings in the future without Presidential approval. The actions of the media in regards to Flynn was a tactical mistake on their part. This same law can now be used against the Rockefellers too. Be careful what you wish for is the moral of the story.

Now lets get to the intelligence community. The phone conversation between Flynn and the Russian representative was tapped by the intelligence community and was released to certain newspapers. Aside from the illegality, something more is at work. Consider that tapped conversations are almost never released and very few would have even had access to the conversation so whoever released it can be tracked down. It is not as if every intelligence agent had access to the tap, these things are closely held unless their is a criminal prosecution and they were legally obtained via court order.

Clearly there is something going on in the intelligence community. Remember when General Petraeus was taken out by the intelligence community. Why hasn't the intelligence community gone after the people who wrecked the economy? The two things are connected. In fact, the intelligence community is responsible for seeing these systematic failures and informing the President. Just some things to think about.

The Government Doesn't Want You Driving

LA Times - Senators try to speed up deployment of self-driving cars.

Here is the short on the article. Basically Democrats and Republicans want to make national laws to promote and regulate self driving vehicles. The first issue they want to address is getting rid of pedals and steering wheels. Lets be clear, there is no reason to get rid of steering wheels or pedals, they do not prevent the car from being self driving, they just eliminate you having the option to drive.

Now lets talk about how this may effect you down the road, so to speak. When you are prevented from driving yourself then you have to rely on the car for where you go and what route you take. If you go on Google earth, there are certain places you are not allowed to see. Self driving cars will be prohibited from going certain places too. It will start with sex offenders, the cars will recognize them and automatically take routes that keep them away from schools. You will support that gladly. Later cars will be prohibited to go to certain places, like Area 51 or wherever unless you have special permission.

What if the government doesn't want people going to a protest, well, with this technology they could prohibit cars from going to those events or even near them. You may not believe what I am saying; but, most people thought self driving cars would not be accepted in their life time when I began writing about them. About 8 years ago I was telling people that Australia was going to try and censor the internet and I was laughed at to my face. After WikiLeaks released the list of sites that Australia had planned to censor, those same people were not laughing. Never underestimate the establishments hatred of democracy.

Born in Debt

I want to ask a question. If in the future almost all jobs are automated, which nation gets the revenue from taxes?  I will ask that in another way. Nations make money to take care of people from taxes. We tax everyone; except those who have no money, no income. You cannot get blood from a stone. What happens when you don't need people's labor, when they have nothing to sell?

You are born in this world with 2 things, your mind and your body, that is it. Society tells us that we are born in debt, at least most of us. We are told that every child born owes X amount because of our national debts. That is garbage. You cannot be born in debt. Debt is an illusion. Debt without an agreement by both parties is slavery. You might be able to sell yourself into slavery morally; but, you cannot be born into it morally.

If someone is born today, why should they respect ownership of the world by those who were born before them? Read that slowly. How does being born mean you owe others? That is silly. Being born means owing nothing to anyone else. If your mother's vagina is attached to a queen or king, you are born owning lots of stuff. How is that right? How do we allow some people to be born with no options or chances and others to be born with all options and no chance of going without. Do you think Prince Harry's kids could possibly end up homeless and with nothing?

I don't know if my readers can see my real point. If all jobs are automated, do newborn babies wake up with debt and no way to pay it? This is about inherited wealth and real privilege. It is about why we should not accept a rigged where we start with nothing and others start with everything. The world is not based on merit, it is based on dishonest and unfair advantage by a few.

Trump's Travel Ban

While the corporate media is busy spinning the ban and what the court said about it, I prefer to give you a link to the actual court order.

Fox - Washington v Trump court ruling.

Here is what has actually happened. Firstly, a couple of states sued the federal government over the ban. They asked the court for a temporary restraining order (tro) and was given it while the case goes forward. The federal government appealed the tro and the higher court refused to vacate the lower courts order.

The problem with the President's initial order was that it included people with visas and legal residents. If it had merely banned the issuance of new visas the court would have not issued the tro. Some of the people kept out already lived here and were merely returning home. The executive order by the President also said it would allow religious minorities in these countries to come here. That was unnecessary he could have stuck with existing language that allows people who are being persecuted to come here; but, he wanted to specifically appeal to the Christian community in this country. The fact is Christians are being persecuted in some of the countries that were included in the ban; but, they are not the only ones. Women and gays could easily show that they are also persecuted in the countries listed.

I don't believe the ban was done poorly by accident, I believe it was intentionally done the way it was so that Trump could play the victim attempting to protect us while attacking the courts.

YouTube Commentators for My Readers

Just for fun and to change up things for my readers, I am going to begin regularly posting the best YouTube video of the day. I will mainly post political commentators; but, I will through some comedy and generally interesting videos too.

Mark Dice - CNN: Calling Us "Fake News" Is Like Using "N-Word"

The Jimmy Dore Show - What Trump Voters Know That The Democrat Elite Don't! (Mark Blyth Interview)

Late Night With Seth Meyers - How Democrats Are Responding to Trump: A Closer Look

I won't usually watch Seth anymore because he anti-Trump all the time. He stopped being funny when the elections began because he had a personal problem with Trump. In fact he attacked Trump at the Press Corp dinner in 2011, long before Trump ran for office or stated any policies.

I am posting this one because I was writing a post about the stupidity  of the media making a story about whether or not Trump wears a robe or not. It is pretty sad  when the media thinks the big news is about whether or not Trump wears a robe. The media is merely attacking every ludicrous item they can and still won't address the issues that elected Trump or how the media is seeking to be a monopoly where only one voice is heard.

The Guardian - Images of Trump in a bathrobe flood Twitter after Sean Spicer says he 'doesn't own one'. 

Bruce Springsteen's Delusion of Grandeur

The Observer - A Letter of Apology From Bruce Springsteen for Letting Trump Win. 

I have liked many Springsteen songs over the past 30 years. To be honest I got sick of "Born to Run" after all it's airplay a couple of decades ago; but, the guy wrote some good songs and gave good concerts from what I read. He also managed to cheat on his wife with a backup singer. It is estimated he is worth about $200 million. He made that money singing about working class guys; but, now he is more concerned about Muslim refugees than the people who bought his albums. Just try buying his albums in Iraq not off the black market, good luck with that.

Springsteen wrote a letter to the Observer, linked to above, that really demonstrates his overly self-important psychosis. He claims he could have stopped Trump from winning the election by singing outside of Trump speeches and he believes that. He actually believes that people would have voted for Hillary if he had sung to them regardless of the fact that Hillary spent practically no time in the Midwest states that Trump won and regardless of the fact that she did not care one bit about their jobs being outsourced.

Kid Rock is not one of my favorite musicians; but, I like a couple of his songs. What I will say about Kid Rock is that he still lives in Michigan and takes care of his neighbors. Kid Rock keeps his ticket prices down so that working class people can still see his concerts. Kid Rock watched his friends lose their jobs in Detroit and cares about them.

I don't expect much in the way of in depth thinking from people who have dedicated their lives to making money as artists, they tend to be self-absorbed and it helps them to be better artists. I am just disgusted when they start believing their own press and thinking that the world really does revolve around them.

I would be impressed if Springsteen said he was going to work to get Democratic candidates elected WHO WERE GOING TO BRING BACK JOBS AND STOP ALLOWING AMERICAN COMPANIES TO OUTSOURCE. He didn't do that, he didn't address any of the issues that led to Trump being elected in the Midwest because he doesn't care. Shame on him.