Raser's Edge:  Pssst… Hey Don we already have three!

In his ongoing battle with the press in general and CNN in particular Trump recently tweeted:  “Something has to be done, including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”

Our embarrassing president never passes up an opportunity to show just how dumb he is. He obviously does not know the United States already has worldwide networks, three in fact: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and The Armed Forces Network.

As a public service to Trump and his minions who are probably just as dumb about this matter as he is, here is a description of the three.  (My favorite is RFE which was operating when I was a newspaper correspondent in Paris covering NATO.  We all knew it was an arm of the CIA.) 

Voice of America (VOA) is a U.S. government-funded international radio broadcast source which serves as the United States federal government's official institution for non-military, external broadcasting, the largest U.S. international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in more than 40 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by foreign audiences, so VOA programming has an influence on public opinion abroad regarding the United States and its leaders.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government-funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East where it says that "the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is a 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an agency overseeing all U.S. federal government international broadcasting services.

During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe (RFE) was broadcast to Soviet satellite countries and Radio Liberty (RL) targeted the Soviet Union. RFE was founded as an anti-communist propaganda source in 1949 by the National Committee for a Free Europe. RL was founded two years later and the two organizations merged in 1976. Communist governments frequently sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters, and the KGB regularly jammed its signals. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) until 1972. During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.

The American Forces Network (AFN) is the broadcast service operated by the United States Armed Forces' American Forces Radio and Television Service^[1] (AFRTS) for its entertainment and command internal information networks worldwide. The AFN worldwide radio and television broadcast network serves American service members, Department of Defense and other U.S. government civilians and their families stationed at bases overseas, as well as U.S. Navy ships at sea. AFN broadcasts popular American radio and television programs from the major U.S. networks

Raser’s Edge: Compassion anyone?

As everyone who has been awake over the last week knows, California has been hit with unbelievably devastating forest fires killing scores of people, destroying thousands of homes and tens of thousands of forest lands.

And in typical fashion, our boorish president, rather than extend sympathy and compassion to the thousands of Californians enduring this catastrophe, he tweets: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now or no more Fed payments!” In other words, because he hates California, he has to blame the state and make it a political, rather than compassionate response.
 

Now let’s pose a hypothetical situation. Let’s say I posted this: “On Wednesday, I have to go to Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville for another surgery to remove melanoma from my right lung. Just like the California wild fires, I keep getting these things and this is the third surgery to take another melanoma out of my lungs.” *

Now let’s say one of my Facebook friends (let’s call him Bozo) sent me this reply: “There is no reason for you to keep getting these recurring melanoma events. If you had had better sun exposure management in your youth instead of going to the beach every summer, and if you had not moved to Florida to retire and go to the beach where there is sun, and therefore grossly mismanaged your life, you would not have these problems. The remedy now is no more Fed payments for your Medicare.”

Hopefully, many of you will get my point. I doubt very much that my Trumpist Facebook friends will have any idea what I am talking about.

*This is actually true. I am having my third lung surgery this week.

Raser’s Edge—Observation Deck: What’s in a syndrome?

Right wingers have often diagnosed me as having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” (TDS) which is defined as “a mock mental disorder coined by supporters of Donald Trump to describe his critics as irrational and unhinged.”

Actually it was originally coined referring to establishment Republicans during the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary but now Trumpists just use if for people they hate.

On the principle that one dumb syndrome deserves another, I am coining “Trump Sycophant Syndrome (TSS).  (I was going to call it “Trump Stupidity Syndrome” but I was afraid that it would offend some Trumpists so much they would hit the delete key.)

TSS is defined as “a real mental disorder that muddles people’s minds so much they believe all his lies, bombast, bragging, and narcissism and share his hatred towards minorities, immigrants and Democrats.”

TSS is not just limited to those grinning white people who go crazy at his rallies and chant hate slogans on cue.  Prominent Republican politicians have also been seriously afflicted.  One of the most serious cases is Ted Cruz.  During the nomination campaign, Trump called him “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife and implied his father had something to do with Kennedy’s assassination.  It is amazing what a reelection campaign and a long nose inserted into a specific orifice will do.  Trump has returned Cruz’s love by calling him “Beautiful Ted.”

I was also going to coin the term “TBSS” which would not have required any explanation.

Raser’s Edge: Trumpists don’t like me because I am so smart

One of the things I contend with all the time from my right-wing Facebook Friends are nasty epithets and comments.  I have been called “such an ass,” “Commie bastard,” “Commie Democrat,” “phony,” “libtard,” “libturd,” “D-rat,” and a resident of the “shitpot of evil” among other things. I get comments like, “you are impossible,” “we need to block him.”  “He is too much of a daily annoyance and has a sick mind.”

There is a reason why Trumpists hold me in such contempt:  It is because I am so much smarter than they are.  I am really, really smart.  Everybody knows that.  People keep telling how smart I am all the time.  Let me tell you folks, just this morning my friend Jim, who knows a lot about smartness, called me up and told me I am probably the smartest guy in American history.

Even the President of the United States knows I am really, really smart.  You may recall he claimed that going to a great Ivy League school like he did—the University of Pennsylvania—makes him very smart.  Well, folks, I went the University of Pennsylvania too so obviously I am also super smart. 

President Trump declared he is smart because he knows “a lot of words.”  Well, let me tell you, I really, really know a lot of words.  I have a degree in journalism, worked as a professional newspaper correspondent, and a magazine editor/publisher so I bet I know even more words than Donald Trump.

Now you will also recall that Trumps said he is respected because he has a “very, very large brain.” Well, folks, you better believe it, a lot of people know that I have a very, very large brain.  Everybody says so including my doctor who has verified that my brain is very large.  He told me just the other day, “You have a larger brain than any Republican I have ever met.” 

The Raser’s Edge:  The Observation Deck:  Socialist?  Nazi?  Fascist? Anyone?

One of the Trumpsts’s favorite ploys is to claim: “The Democrats want to turn American into Socialist Venezuela.”   Of course, that is not true, absurd and would never happen.  So, on the principle of matching stupidity with stupidity, how about this:  The Republicans want to turn America into Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.  Hey remember those pro-Trump neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us”?   Remember when those mob demonstrations took place, The Leader (Il Duce Americano) declared there were “good people on both sides”?  Oh.  Oh I forgot “mobs” for Republicans means women objecting to sexual assaults and nominating a judge who would take away the right to determine what to do with their own bodies.  Republicans like Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell  just want those nasty women “mobs” to shut up and go home and make dinner for their husbands. 

Raser’s Edge:  What if?

Spoiler alert:  This post will undoubtedly irritate many Trumpist readers.  However, it poses two theoretical situations for you to think about, so look at it as a thought experiment.

With the beginning of the 2018 NFL Season, the controversy over players kneeling for the national anthem is exploding again in the news.  You all know the history,  Quarterback Colen Kaepernich did not stand for the national anthem and President Trump branded all who joined him as “sons of bitches,” “unpatriotic” and they should be fired and kicked out of the country.

Trump tweeted August 10: “The NFL players are at it again - taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the National Anthem. Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their “outrage” at something that most of them are unable to define.”

This is, of course, not true.  The players protesting know exactly the basis for their “outrage.” Colen Kaepernich who started it all by kneeling during the national anthem specifically stated he was protesting racism and police brutality.  Since then, the players joining him in the kneeling have clearly stated they are against social injustice, and for equal rights and equality.  In other words, the players are protesting against racism and bigotry towards blacks.

Trump is a master of manipulation and he knew very well that by criticizing NFL players as highly-paid, unpatriotic black guys he would have another way to whip up the white, uneducated base that attends his rallies.  He could play both the race and patriotism cards to draw applause, cheers and chants.

Now let’s create two different scenarios about kneeling for the National Anthem. 

Suppose we had a president who said, “Kneeling for the anthem is certainly non-traditional and perhaps may irritate some, but let’s think about the reasons why these players are doing it.  They are protesting a real problem facing America today, racial inequality and tensions.  They are using their constitutional right to free expression and we should respect that.  Let’s use this gesture to focus our attention on the problem and work together to solve it.”  How do you think Trump’s rally base would react to that?  Would it generate cheers, applause and chants of “Stamp out racism!”? 

Here’s another hypothesis to consider.  Let’s say the players who started kneeling for the national anthem were white.  When asked why, they reply, “We want to honor our brave military personnel who have given their lives for our country and show respect for those who continue to serve today to protect our freedom.”   How do you suppose Trump would use that to whip up frenzies at his rallies?

Think about it.

Raser’s Edge:  Observation Deck—New CIA Torture Technique

Since the CIA has now supposedly abandoned waterboarding as a torture technique, they probably need a new one.  I have a suggestion.  I suggest the CIA gather all the news reports of Paul Manafort’s trial—MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR, the broadcast networks—and splice them all into one non-stop video.  The prisoner would then be required to watch it until he just can’t stand it anymore and confesses or goes stark raving mad.

Raser’s Edge:  Trump’s “greatest economic turnaround?”  Eh… Not really

Trump just claimed that he is responsible for the greatest economic “turnaround” in American history.  Not really.  If you fact check the real economic performance over the last ten years you will find some of his miraculous numbers are not as good as those during the Obama Administration.  But never mind.  I am fully aware if I were to list the contradictory data, the Trumpists would defend their dearly beloved, claiming my sources are all phony,  liberal lies and, oh yeah, what about Hillary’s emails?  So I am not even going to try.

The fact is, the good American economic performance is a continuation of trends that started at the beginning of the Obama years.  To prove my point, I will use my own personal data which, I assure you, are incontestable “real facts” since I have the IRA and annuity statements to prove it.

When Obama inherited the economic disaster created by George W. Bush and his Republicans, my retirement holdings had plunged 30 percent below what they were when the Bush Republicans took over.  Obviously, it was not a good idea to cash out what was left so I let it sit and hoped for the best.

During the Obama years, my holdings not only recuperated the 30 percent they lost under Bush, but added about another 20 percent by the time Obama left office.    My holdings have continued the upward trend under Trump for which I am grateful and hope it continues that way.  In six months I’ll publish a sequel to this post and we shall see.   So I have Obama to thank for a real “turnaround” from the economic mess George W created.  I really don’t want to see a Trump “turnaround.”    If we do, the DOW will take a nosedive. Once again we have another example that Trump is either lying or he hasn’t the vaguest idea of what he is talking about.

To prove that I am not making this up, I have included a link below to Investopedia that includes a graph based on real Dow Jones numbers corroborating my personal experience. As you can see, the overall stock market shows a constant overall upward trend since Obama took over the economic disaster created by Bush.  So rather than buy into Trump’s unfounded bragging that his policies are a “turnaround” and the best in the history of the universe, let’s give him credit for keeping a trend he inherited going and hope it continues that way.  Stay tuned.

Note:  Now before the Trumpists attack Investopedia’s  facts which are really real, here’s Mediabiasfactcheck’s rating: “ We rate Investopedia high for factual reporting as they present news with low biased wording and always source their information to credible media outlets, therefore we place them in the least biased category.”

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/101314/where-was-dow-jones-when-obama-took-office.asp

Raser’s Edge:  The Observation Deck—What about MY tax dollars?

How often have you heard the so-called fiscally responsible Republicans gripe about “MY tax dollars” being spent on programs that help less fortunate Americans like Medicaid and lunches for school kids.  “My God,” they moan, “I don’t want to see my tax dollars going to ‘those’ people.  That’s ‘socialism’ and I’m a white, god-fearing, patriotic American !”  So now Trump launches a trade war which will cost mid-American farmers a lot of money in lost sales. These farmers just happen to be the ones who foisted Trump upon us.  So what does Trump do?  He wants to give them 12 billion tax payer dollars to help cover their losses which his own trade policies will cause.  So for Republicans, it’s not okay to use tax-payer dollars to give a school kid lunch but it is okay to use tax-payer dollars to make up for farmers’ sales losses caused by a Republican president’s own policies.  I think we should add another term to the political lexicon.  Let’s call it “Trump’s capitalistic socialism.”

Raser’s Edge—Observation Deck:  Trump can speak to the dead

During the election campaign, Donald Trump declared that “thousands and thousands” of people asked him to arrange for North Korea to return their sons’ remains.  OK.  The Korean War ended in 1953.  Draft age at the time was 18 years old.  So, the youngest solder in 1953 would have been born in 1935.  Assuming the parents were young, say 21 years old at the child’s birth, they would have been born in 1914. So, Trump claims he spoke to thousands and thousands of people who are 104 years old or older.  WOW!  Of course, his “base” is so gullible they would believe him if he said he can walk on water.  

Raser’s Edge:  Republicans, the Party of Lies

During the Obama Administration, the Republican Party was known as “the party of no” because whatever Obama proposed they said “no.”  Now, under their Liar-in-Chief, Donald Trump, they have become the Party of Lies.

No matter what lie Trump tells, the Republican sycophants feel obligated to come up with ways to justify it.  Kellyanne Conway, of course, invented  “alternate facts,”  and Rudy Giuliani came up with concept of “truth is relative.”  Another Trump slobberer, whose name I don’t recall, declared that Trump “misremembered” a fact to justify the lie.

This morning, Steve Bannon, who is so far right he qualifies as a neo- Nazi, when asked on This Week with George Stephanopolis if Trump lies, said “no” he doesn’t and added that Trump just speaks with a “special vernacular” to his supporters.  With homage to Gertrude Stein, “A lie is a lie, is a lie.  A lie by any other name would stink as badly.”  (Trump’s “base” supporters will probably not get that reference.)

Trump tells so many lies that it is hard to keep count.  His impromptu press conference outside the White House this week was a treasure trove of lies but I’ll just cite two:  1) The Democrats are to blame for separating immigrant parents from their children and, 2)  just jailed Paul Manafort only served the Trump campaign for 49 days.

Separating asylum seekers from their children is a Trump policy, not a Democrat’s law.  In fact AG Jeff Sessions proclaimed that the administration’s specific “no tolerance” stance is Republican policy and declared it is ordained by God.  Regarding Manafort’s connection with the Trump campaign, Liar Don said he only served 49 days when he actually served 144.  Of course, this is not “fake news” nor “unfair treatment”—Trump’s go to excuses.  Fact and math are unequivocal.  Trump lied!  Bingo.  Oh, I’m sure his gullible “base” will understand his “special vernacular” and put on their red baseball caps.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/05/trump-blames-own-border-policy-on-democrats/

Raser’s Edge Observation Deck:   What is truth?

The Republicans have unique ways of answering this ageless philosophical question.   We had Kellyanne Conway declare there are such things as “alternate facts” and just this week Rudy Giulian told the Washington Post i “Truth is relative. They may have a different version of the truth than we do.”  Of course Dishonest Don doesn’t know nor care what truth is.  He has told over 3,000 lies since he became president which a lot of people tell me is the greatest number of presidential lies in the history of the world.

Raser’s Edge:  You see, Grandpa, this is how you log in…

Here’s what happened.  During the election campaign, the Republicans got information gathered by Cambridge Analytical that it got from facebook and used it to support Trump.  When this was revealed, Chicken Little started running around screaming “The sky is falling!”  Well of course we had to have Congressional Hearings so our politicians could huff and puff on camera and show just how tough and serious they are about social media sharing your information.

Many of them took the opportunity to demonstrate their pomposity and how dumb they are regarding social medial

If you watched the senate hearing, and I did watch a lot of it since it was raining that day, it made me think of a tolerant grand kid patiently trying to explain  modern technological life to a bunch of old white-haired grandpas.  There were many “senior moments” for the senators like when Orin Hatch asked how facebook could make money selling people’s private information.   Zuckerberg politely pointed out that they don’t sell people’s information, they sell advertising.

It’s too bad our Congress can’t run our government as successfully as Mark Zuckerberg runs facebook.

www.arcamax.com/politics/editorialcartoons/garyvarvel/?ezine=641

Raser’s Edge:  The Observation Deck:  And the little children shall lead them

Today thousands and thousands of young people mobilized and marched across America to protest against the NRA and gun violence in schools.  Some schools said they would punish or discipline students who participated.  It would seem those schools are under the influence of the gun hucksters who whine, gripe and moan constantly about their second amendment rights.  What about the students’ first amendment rights? The most heartening quote I heard today was one of the high schoolers said, “I am 18 and I am going to vote.”  Hopefully it will start a movement for this generation to get the spineless, NRA lackey politicians out of our government and we will finally get some sanity in our gun laws.

Raser’s Edge:  A “house” by any other name is still a “hole.”

One of the back flips congressional Republicans are jumping through to defend Trump’s vulgar, racist remarks about Haiti, San Salvador and African countries is whether he said “shithole” or “shithouse.”

For Trump apologists this seem to imply some subtle linguistic difference which renders “shithouse” less offensive than “shithole.”  Since Trump’s remark has drawn such wide spread condemnation as racist, the Republicans have come up with a nutty way of saying the remark was not racist.  They are now contending Sen. Durbin who reported Trump’s comments, did not hear it correctly and what Trump really said was the countries were actually “shithouses” and not “shitholes.”

Evidently according to Republican-think “shitholes” can be taken as a slur on the black people who live there, but “shithouse” just derides the country so that is not racist.  So Trump is not racist because he actually used the term “shithouse.”

Republicans Cotton and Perdue who were at the meeting, initially said they did not recall the President saying these comments “specifically.”  Then evidently their memories improved and they recalled Trump saying “shithouse” not “shithole.”

Reaction around the world has been that America is now a country where shit happens because we elected a shithead.