Foulness Of Being

 

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  Here's a song.

Minnesotans Are Showing The Way

By now it should be clear that the ICE presence in Minnesota is not about enforcement of immigration laws. It is about lawless rule. It all emanates from our supposed president, Donald J. Trump, a pathological narcissist who sees himself as unbound by any law.

As we are seeing in the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, usurpers of the Federal Government operate with with the same sense of unboundedness by any law. As with Trump, they can deflect any accountability by lying. Like their boss, they lie about everything, all the time. Not one word they say about anything can be trusted. As with their ideological predecessors in Nazi Germany, they know that the Big Lie is an effective propaganda technique.

Bernie Sanders was interviewed on TV a few days ago, and he said the killing of Renée Good was a warning to the entire nation, that our Federal Government will kill any of us if we get in their way. It is with ICE now, but will expand from there if not stopped. Immigration is the handiest pretext for now, the low-hanging fruit of lawless rule. Once a lethal benchmark is established, it will be easy to expand the murderous impunity outward. It must be stopped, and can when it becomes clear what is taking place. ICE has killed again today. Minnesotans are showing the way out of this mess.
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In 1966-67, while a student at St. Thomas in St. Paul, I lived in Minneapolis, 41st and 42nd St., about a mile east of where Renée Good was shot and killed. It was an average middle class neighborhood. Never would I have believed that such perfidy would take place so close to where I once peacefully resided.

A moment by moment pictorial of the shooting of Alex Pretti from the New York Times. He was an intensive care nurse at the VA hospital in Minneapolis. In 2018 I was a patient for five days in the intensive care unit at the Madison VA. I would not be here today without the dedicated care I received from the nurses there. 

Here's a video of Alex Pretti honoring a fallen veteran at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, where he worked. They do these ceremonies at the Madison VA too, and they are incredibly moving. Here's an interview with the son (Mac Randolph) of the veteran, Terry Randolph, on WCCO Minneapolis.

Heather Digby Parton, writing in Salon, says Trump is worse than a fascist. Minnesota Nice has become Minnesota Strong. Here's a story by an observer of the ICE presence in Minneapolis. Private prisons are cashing in on Trump's ICE grift. Another Big Lie in Minneapolis.
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Here's a song. Canned Heat. Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The Knickerbockers. Stevie Wonder. The Beatles. The Fugs. I met this band at a gas station on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul in 1967. They drove a hearse to carry their equipment. Lucinda Williams. Late Show version. Amanda Rheaume. Brewer and Shipley. Peter Tosh. Another from Peter Tosh. A song for Trump. A song for the reopening of the Trump Kennedy Center. Marc Skjervem. The Marsh Family.

Here's something we can give each other in these strange times.

ICE agents should have listened to this song before signing up for their killing spree.

Billy Bragg has a new song dedicated to Alex Pretti and the people of Minneapolis. If you need a laugh in all this madness, Jon Stewart might suffice.

Bruce Springsteen has a new song, Streets of Minneapolis. I suppose ICE will try to arrest him too. Here's an alternate version of the song. She pronounces Nicollet correctly.

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R.I.P. Bob Weir. This is my favorite of the Grateful Dead songs he sang. This is probably my second favorite. He is best known for this song. The last time I saw the band was at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1994. The version they did of Cassidy took music to a new level. They opened with this song about three times in concerts I went to. This is a great song too. And this. I was at this show. Playing In The Band. El Paso. Mexicali Blues. Man Smart, Woman Smarter. And, of course, Me and Bobby McGee. With Paul Simon, doing The Boxer in 2019.

R.I.P. Joe Ely. Here's my favorite Flatlanders song. I saw the band once in Madison in 2002.

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Update, January 27:

A shorter rendition of this post appeared in today's Madison Cap Times.

You can also see it on Smirking Chimp. There are many great writers who submit their work to Smirking Chimp, which can be seen here. Sometimes it doesn't load, which is likely due to denial of service attacks.

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Update, January 31:

Meanwhile, on the over there, so here front, the government of Israel has killed another 30 people (at least), including three children (at least) in its continuing pretense of ceasefire. As with the Trump grift regime, they are lying all the time about everything. They now admit to killing 70,000 people in their campaign of genocide, sponsored by the U.S. government - including both houses of Congress. And, with the propaganda support of U.S. news media. When this kind of perfidy comes home to roost, we can expect the same here (over there, so here).
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Update, February 1:

We now know the names of two of the ICE agents who shot Alex Pretti. A story about what ProPublica reporters saw in Minneapolis.

Gone By Christmas

I post comments here and there to keep my mind engaged. The spontaneity is irresistible. A few days ago The New York Times had a story about three Republican congresswomen who broke ranks with Trump over the Epstein files. They are pretty stingy about what gets published, but they included this one in the comment section:

J

John Hamilton

Madison, Wisconsin Nov. 18

So ironic. Trump hoisted on his own petard. We will be looking back on this era very soon, and will wonder how we let it happen. It was a long leadup, well before Trump. Trump is now melting down. He will not solidify up. The melting process will continue. There isn't much to him, so when he heads downhill he has no internal resources to bring him back. He also has no friends, so it will be comical to see the internal firing squad, as his soon-to-be former cronies turn on him in desperate efforts to save themselves.
We should start preparing now. There has been much criminality in the past ten months: ICE, Homeland Security, DOGE, the Department of Justice, the FBI, others. We will need to go about this carefully, making sure the system holds together in the process of un-Trumping ourselves of this complete nightmare.

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Some are more fun than others, like this one in response to Trump calling a Bloomberg reporter "Piggy" this past Tuesday: 

Always projecting his fears out. He, rotund, gourmand, obese, has no hesitation calling others what he pretends is not himself. As I have said many times before, he is progressively mentally ill. He has now reached a new phase. Gone by Christmas.

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Or, more seriously, from this Yahoo repost of an article in the Wall Street Journal about the effect of Trump's tariffs on global growth:

Duh. Trump of course doesn't have a clue about what he is doing, partly because he doesn't have a clue about anything, and mainly because his tariffs were motivated by malevolence and a pathological need to bully and dominate.

In the long run he is only speeding up the process of the demise of worldwide Capitalism. It is an infinite growth system, destroys the planet and its people, and is unsustainable. What passes for Socialism is also infinite growth, so it is no answer either.

There is no answer but time. What will happen will happen, and we don't know how it will play out. The planet has never been in such a predicament before. There are plenty of know-it-alls around, CNBC, Fox, etc. Wall Street Journal. They will all have more than plenty to say as it all comes down, and will all be wrong. They will hold to the belief of infinite growth to the bitter end. It will be far worse than the Great Depression.

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If you need some inspiration, watch this movie, the Ken Burns/PBS history of the American Revolution - the entire twelve hours.

I spent November 1977 to the end of February 1978 in India. It became clear to me that the vast poverty and disease were the direct result of the British "Raj."

The nation of Israel was mostly a "gift" from "Great Britain" - a gift that was not theirs to give.

My ancestry is from Scotland and Ireland, both of which were conquered by the British Empire. Because of this my forebearers emigrated to the United States. One of them, my namesake John Hamilton, fought against the British in the War of 1812, along with his brothers.

Salon has a good article about the movie.

This interview with Ms. Rachel is worth your time.

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Here's a song. Here's another. Donovan. The Allman Brothers. Here's the story of the song's meaning. Some money music from Down Under, another former British theft. The Moody Blues. A song for the times from Canadian fist nation singer and musician Amanda Rheume. Peter Tosh. Stevie Wonder. John Prine. 4 Non Blondes. Tracy Chapman. Bob Dylan. Another song from Bob Dylan, a perfect description of our disintegrating and incompetent leader.

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New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is still calling Trump a fascist. I count myself among Mamdani's admirers and supporters. I tend not to think of Trump as a fascist, though. That would require some thought, some intellectual construct. Trump may ACT as a fascist, but his only belief is narcissistic - an ego-centered focus on himself. This makes him more dangerous than a fascist. We only need to stop him from now until Christmas. His disintegration will be complete by then.

Heh. Narcissism, unlike fascism, is not an ideology, not a belief system. It is only an "ism" because of linguistics, in the English speaking world a way of describing an array of behavioral characteristics. Trump, unable to form a belief system of any kind outside his own ego, is the perfect example of the folly of assigning "isms" willy-nilly. The syndrome is better described as Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

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Like her or not, Marjorie Taylor Greene is genuine. The sad part is that she is a genuine crackpot. David Frum writes in The Atlantic that she didn't "get the joke" about serving in Congress - that it is all bullshit, just a corrupt gaggle of greed merchants. Another sad aspect of this is that Congress sending money and weaponry to support the genocide in Gaza and Israeli lawlessness elsewhere is more cynical than we imagined - bleeding the U.S. treasury for campaign contributions from AIPAC and the military-industrial complex.

Marjorie Taylor Greene supported Israel sort of honestly - for religious crackpot reasons. She recently has changed her tune about the Mideast, criticizing Israel's genocide and Trump's bombing of Iran. Trump seemed unperturbed, but when she called for the release of the Epstein files, Trump turned on her. She announced her resignation from Congress to be effective January 5 of next year.

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Update, November 25:

R.I.P. Jimmy Cliff. He was one of the three pioneers of Reggae music, along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Reggae music is native to Jamaica, a former British slave colony in the Caribbean Sea. My favorite of his songs are The Harder They Come and Sitting in Limbo, both perfect metaphors for what we are all going through. Alternate version of The Harder They Come. Alternate version of Sitting in Limbo.

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Update, November 30:

Others are noticing Trump's decline. He can't help name calling, most recently defaming Minnesota governor Tim Walz with the accusation that he is "seriously retarded." Walz is demanding Trump release his medical records of his recent MRI scan. I replied to the Huffpost article about it thusly:

John Hamilton

Once again our fearful leader projects out what he tries to hide about himself. He has ruined his life with bad behavior, turning his brain into mush. He brags about "acing" the simplest intelligence test, which is fake anyway. The only time questions like he brags about are asked is of people already suffering from dementia.

In real life experience, Trump faked his way through school, benefiting from endowments made by his father, such as to Penn State, where Fred Trump donated handsomely so his errant son could get an MBA. Proof that his degree is fake is Trump's total incompetence in business. He only knows how to grift.

I used to substitute teach in special ed. There was quite a variety, but the kids with down syndrome were typically very decent and cheerful, and eager to learn. They also were enthusiastic about helping others. As far as intelligence, they were smart enough to be who they were, and to accept the condition that life offered them.

There were kids like Trump too. They tended to often be remanded to "Time Out Four" - confinement of some type. His parents sent him to their version of special ed - military school. He learned how to grift there.

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Salon has an update about Jeffrey Epstein crony Larry Summers, "Democrat."

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Update, December 4:

Salon verifies that Trump is collapsing.

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R.I.P. Steve Cropper. He co-wrote Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay with Otis Redding, and Midnight Hour with Wilson Pickett, among many other collaborations. This rebroadcast on NPR's Fresh Air of an interview with him from 1990 was aired December 5. Here's my favorite Booker T & the MGs song. I learned to play along with it during my indenture in the Army. This studio version has better sound. Here they are on the David Letterman show in 1991.

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Update, December 6:

Marjorie Taylor Greene told 60 Minutes Trump was furious with her for voting to release the Epstein files. I had this response:

John

Making Trump furious is Marjorie Taylor Greene's greatest accomplishment in life. We should all be doing whatever we can to make him furious.

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There is talk about SECDEF/WAR Pete Hegseth being investigated by five government bodies, suggesting it will lead to nowhere. I see it this way:

John 

What matters most is that he will be investigated. His accountability is the life sentence he has of being Pete Hegseth. Investigations will slow him down in his various criminal operations, leading to fewer people killed. And, investigations will weaken his power over the military. 

I served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, but thankfully was sent to Germany as part of our threat to the Soviet Union via NATO. The war was morally bankrupt from the beginning, but had "legal" sanction from Congress when they enacted the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - totally fake. 

Trump and his underlings don't even bother with fake legality, but still can be stopped or slowed down. It likely will only take a few months. Trump is in failing health, both mentally an physically. His health and personal habits militate against him. Bullying is bad for your health, and bullying the entire planet is particularly bad. One old, weak and unhealthy dictator versus the world is a bad gamble.

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Update, December 15: Christmas is in ten days.

Alternet reports 'Something off in the Oval Office' as Trump 'wanders the room' after repeating Reiner insult.

R.I.P. Rob and Michele Reiner. Very sad. In 1971 when I got out of the Army I, along with many millions of others, started watching All In The Family. I didn't like the show, but identified with Rob Reiner's character Michael Stivic, and he gave me an outlet for the anger I was going through. To this day I see him frozen in time as that character. 

This is another sad reminder that we are all here temporarily, and that we can be gone in an instant, no matter who we are. I am old enough to remember Rob Reiner's father Carl in Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" in the early to mid-1950s. It is hard for me to believe I have been witness to this long saga of artistic creation, only to have it end so tragically.

And, regarding our fearful leader and his followers pretending his critics suffer from "Trump Derangement Syndrome," I added this to an article in Huffpost:

Trump Derangement Syndrome is the perfect name for the disease that afflicts Donald Trump. He has his own disease. It makes sense. He likes to have things named after him, like the erstwhile Kennedy Center. 

What are the characteristics of Trump Derangement Syndrome? Narcissism, sexual perversion, bullying, extortion, gluttony, uncontrolled criminality, murder, cheating, grift, racial, ethnic and religious bigotry and pathological lying. 

Thankfully, as he showed the nation last night, he is in rapid decline. I still contend that he will be gone by Christmas. Happy holidays.

Here's what Rob Reiner had to say about Trump. He helped in efforts to defeat Trump in 2020. Wisconsin Republicans were not displeased about Trump's comments about Reiner.

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Update, December 18: The cardiologist for former vice president Dick Cheney says we should all be alarmed at Trump's apparent ill-health exhibited in his yelling speech on TV last night. I'm not alarmed. Christmas is in 7 days.

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Update, December 27: It seems our criminal sociopath president is still here. At least what little is left of him, which isn't much. Though I didn't think he would last until Christmas, he has shown amazing durability. Maybe next week. Here's a song in his memory.