Four weeks have passed since I wrote something here. Momentous times since the election of November 3, 2020, which started with no declared winner. Donald Trump, according to the administration and the majority of his supporters, won the election, a stolen one by the Joe Biden side. Nevertheless, the almighty Electoral College gave Biden 306 votes and Trump 232. The required 270 votes to win went to Biden, Trump lost.
Or won, depending on who you speak with. Three blocks from my house is a Trump-Pence advertisement masquerading as someone's home. Numerous campaign signs pounded into the yard, "Keep America Great" signs among them, but recently I noticed an additional homemade sign made from cardboard, the name BIDEN centered in the middle of a red circle with a diagonal line crossing the name.
One can laugh at this, be disturbed by it, or not think about it, but a now five years-long tendency by liberals and Democrats to dismiss Trump supporters as stupid, ignorant, and even dangerous, covers up their own culpability in promoting the billionaire as a viable political candidate. Trump's key allies in 2015 and 2016 were those who operate corporate news media, many of the same media moguls who later turned on him to support Joe Biden, whom they also elevated from a position of unworthiness to be president.
Which empty soulless sack of shit can make us the most money? That's their main concern.
In February 2016, former CEO of CBS and sexual harasser, Les Moonves, said to an amused audience of executives, "Man, who would have expected the ride we're all having right now? The money's rolling in and this is fun."
Ad money, he meant. Trump's extensive, bloated coverage by news networks put his face and his words on television, elevating his candidacy far above competitors Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and others.
"...this is going to be a very good year for us," Moonves continued. "It's a terrible thing to say, but, bring it on, Donald, keep going."
A terrible thing to say, indeed, because Moonves, like his peers, is a terrible man.
"It may not be good for America," he said, revealing the lack of patriotism of most corporate bigwigs, "but it's damn good for CBS."
Damn good, too, for all of American mainstream news media: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business, NPR, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Vox, Politico, Buzzfeed, MSNBC (chief purveyor of the evidence-free Russiagate conspiracy theory), and many others, including, disappointingly, the successful supposedly left-wing news channel, The Young Turks.
Trump, elevated to the presidency by news media elites in cooperation with the Hillary Clinton Campaign and its foolish Pied Piper Strategy (whereby, with help from excessive news media coverage, Trump was chosen by his former friend Clinton to be her opponent because he was deemed easiest to defeat), inveighed against the same news media that got him elected. "Fake news," the slogan coming easiest to Trump's lips, registered truthfully in the minds of millions of his supporters because news corporations do sell lies as truth, and millions of Americans know it.
In 2002 and 2003, Judith Miller of the New York Times, reported lies about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs, fed to her by "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff. These lies, reported as truth by the Times and numerous other news media outlets, helped to contribute to public perception that Iraq should be attacked preemptively, an invasion leading to Iraqis dying in the hundreds of thousands and the further destabilization of the Middle East by American power brokers intent on stealing that country's natural resources.
That our now newly minted president, Joe Biden, in 2002, convinced doubting Democratic senators to vote for The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, should make anyone with a heart and functioning mind question a government so cavalierly deciding to make aggressive war against a nation that was no threat to the United States. The U.S. and British invasion of Iraq is as heinous as Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland, a nation in 1939 that, like Iraq, was no threat to its invader.
During a Republican presidential debate, held the same month and year Les Moonves figuratively ejaculated while enthusing about Trump-related profiteering, the entertaining reality show billionaire criticized Jeb Bush to his face about President Bush's Iraq War and his failure to prevent 9/11. For news media and political elites, Jeb Bush included, this barb sank in deeply to the extent that it became one of many instances when Trump was regarded as a tasteless, uncouth clown. Yet, to millions of Americans, especially those service members and their families affected directly by the Iraq War and 9/11 generally, the comment rang true.
Jeb Bush's brother illegally invaded Iraq a year and a half after being wholly unprepared to defend his country on 9/11. It's only the people who are paid to lie for a living who might get offended by a political candidate speaking the truth about recent history. Trump in his first campaign habitually said "the quiet part out loud," earning him resentment and hatred from protectors of the American Lie: we're a good nation with good intentions, although we make mistakes sometimes, like arming Contras, arming ISIS, losing track of thousands of weapons introduced into Mexico to fight drug cartels, putting Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, killing most Native Americans, enslaving Africans and forcing them to work on plantations...you know, little goofs like that.
Trump's fake news accusations often landed with people because ordinary Americans of many political views don't trust the news media, nor do they trust the Senate or House of Representatives. These bodies have betrayed workers, evident with last year's CARES Act, a Covid-19 relief package sucking trillions of dollars to the richest people in America. Superstar quarterback Tom Brady received $98,000. With that, he put a down payment on his first yacht. How much did you receive? I got 1,200 bucks like most people. Could Brady, winner of six Super Bowls and a multi-millionaire with a possible lucrative sportscasting career, after his approaching retirement from the NFL, have bought a yacht without the assistance of government welfare? Brady isn't even wealthy by billionaires' standards. They, who need no more money, had it thrown at them by all but one Washington politician, a Republican, Thomas Massie, who voted against it.
Biden, now, has become President Number 46. Like Trump, he's determined to not support and pass Medicare For All, and during a pandemic. This simple action condemns thousands, hundreds of thousands of people to death. Not only is our government eager to kill foreigners for their natural resources, it's willing to kill its own. Biden reportedly is going with a fucked up health care plan, without the public option he promised during his campaign, provided to him by health insurance corporations that have strenuously, for decades, lobbied against Medicare For All, a system that would not only save lives, but would save an estimated 650 billion dollars per year.
Biden said, just recently, the financial cost of Medicare For All concerns him. Oh, something that's cheaper than the current system is going to be too expensive, Joe? Shall I ask one of my little great nephews to correct your math?
He also promised $2,000 checks for Covid-19 relief on top of the $600 already paid out. He garnered a lot of votes in Georgia on this promise alone, and now $1,400 is the figure suggested. 600 + 1,400 equals 2,000, get it? He is, however, on camera saying it will be a $2,000 dollar check and people are, generally speaking, not so stupid as to not realize this millionaire asshole lied to them about their desperate need for money during a time when needs are dire, in Great Depression proportions.
Joe Biden, or is he Herbert Hoover? We can be certain no one of the caliber of FDR will succeed Biden, for no such intelligent and principled politician exists now in America. Biden has a Roosevelt portrait in the Oval Office. A painting of a billionaire begging for money would be more appropriate.
There are many other topics I could write about now; the Capitol assault on January 6, the Biden administration's recognition of U.S. Intelligence Community puppet Juan Guaidó as legitimate President of Venezuela, but in later posts, perhaps, I'll cover these things.
If you think the lies have ceased because Trump got fired by the Electoral College, you're either naive or a fucking idiot on purpose, with an ulterior motive.
Vic Neptune
