Politics – Miscellaneous – education and deconstruction.com

God Help America – BONUS POST

[Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, but apparently was inserted by WordPress, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.]

The United States needs divine intervention. Here’s a song about that.

GOD HELP AMERICA

sung to the tune of “God Bless America” from the scene in the 1943 movie “This is the Army” with apologies to the estates of Irving Berlin, Kate Smith, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

While our president blathers about “me, me, me”

let’s vote to make sure our land is free.

Let us all help keep elections free and fair, heed our founding documents. Deeply, we care.

God help America. Bring back the love.

Democratize her, exorcize her of GOP’s “might makes right” from above,

from ICE and Fox News, to the White House, to the reflecting pool, filled with scum.

God help America. Land of freedom.

God help America. Bring back the love.

Democratize her, exorcize her of GOP’s “might makes right” from above,

from ICE and Fox News, to the White House, to the reflecting pool, filled with scum.

God help America. Land of freedom.

God help America. Bring back the love.

Democratize her, exorcize her of GOP’s “might makes right” from above,

from ICE and Fox News, to the White House, to the reflecting pool, filled with scum.

God help America. Land of freedom.

From ICE and Fox News, to the White House, to the reflecting pool, filled with scum.

God help America. Land of freedom.

Weapons of Math Destruction

The Book of the Week is “Weapons of Math Destruction, How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy” by Cathy O’Neil, first published in 2016.

This hodgepodge of a volume pointed out the dangers of Big Data, whose name has been changed to AI. The software that collects data and does number-crunching that results in harm– the author calls “weapons of math destruction” or WMDs. Since the book’s writing, ALL aspects of Americans’ lives have been taken over by AI. The author provided several real-life examples of groupthink and herd mentality that has led to a toxic loop of self-deception and cluster-screwups.

The three elements of WMDs are: damage, scaling and opacity.

In software engineering, the cliche, “Garbage in, garbage out” means that a flawed process that generates inaccurate data (garbage) will result in an end-product of inaccurate data (garbage). When AI models collect data on a small number of people, and those data are extrapolated to an entire applicable population (“scaling”), there can be honest ineptitude or even malice; numerous additional people’s lives can be adversely affected. The software models used are opaque because they are considered trade secrets or intellectual property. Of course, maximizing profits is the number one goal of AI makers.

The author discussed the subprime mortgage crisis that resulted in the 2008 financial crash. In 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed. The repeal allowed banks to enter the securities business. The securities-ratings services went hog-wild in their quest to collect huge fees from banks, labeling high-risk securities as the opposite of what they really were, while the banks bet against the very same securities they’d sold to their customers.

These perpetrators poisoned the well for everyone, so that new laws were enacted that made it more expensive for financially responsible, law-abiding people to apply for mortgages going forward.

In the 2010’s, students in Zhongxiang in China were slated to take the national standardized university entrance exam. There had been a crackdown on cheating. Approximately two thousand students protested outside their school, shouting “We want fairness. There is no fairness if you don’t let us cheat.”

American politics is currently witnessing this kind of unmitigated lawlessness and hubris. It waxes and wanes through decades, but now it is more extreme than ever because:

Since the 2008 financial crash, the profiteers’ wealth has been compounding, which has increased its power, as money is power.
The “president” (who some would argue is a dictator) is entrenched with the legal system.
Previous administrations were neither as litigious nor as driven to stay in power forever by rigging everything (including but far from limited to: a blood-for-oil war, insider trading, redistricting, launching smear campaigns against all enemies, sweetheart contracts with political donors, etc., etc., etc.).

Here is one last example of how poor Americans were the victims of expensive stupidity: Between 2013 and 2015, a deeply flawed AI system that screened unemployment-benefits recipients in the state of Michigan, wrongly accused 93% of the recipients of waste, fraud or abuse.

Read the book to learn about many more examples of the Orwellian juggernaut AI has become.

White House Fraternity – BONUS POST

Please Note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was NOT inserted by this blogger, and it cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.

This is a song for all law-abiding Americans. Don’t hesitate to show that you still believe in democracy.

WHITE HOUSE FRATERNITY

sung to the tune of “The Addams Family” TV theme song, with apologies to whomever the rights may concern.

They’re sleazy evil criers, mysterious deniers. They’re altogether liars. The White House Fraternity.

The House is a greedfest for ’em, with a shrinking Congressional quorum. It’s impossible to ignore ’em. The White House Fraternity.

Beat. Cheat. Wall Street.

So vote out the corrupt leeches. Ignore the cliched speeches. We’ll correct the contract breaches of the White House Fraternity.

Donors Kissing Up – BONUS POST

Please Note: The word “Featured” on the left side above was not inserted by this blogger and cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.

Shoutout to U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) for elaborating on the extremely criminal and unethical behavior of the Trump administration. Here’s a song about it.

DONORS KISSING UP

sung to the tune of “The Jeffersons” TV theme song with apologies to whomever the rights may concern.

Trump-donors are kissing up, donors kissing up, to this guy, donors kissing up.

Getting tax CUTS and pardons with this guy.

Donors kissing up, donors kissing up, to this guy.

Honest people are sick of his lies.

Innocent-foreigner detentions, impunity, gambling and crypTO. Sweetheart contracts, criminal acts with each quid pro quo.

Now they’re in the big leagues, strongman tactics on tap. As long as he lives, it’s him and his cronies, and everything wrong with that.

Donors kissing up, donors kissing up.

Tax cuts and pardons with this guy, donors kissing up, donors kissing up, to this guy.

Honest people are sick of his li-ies.

Different Jokes – BONUS POST

Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.

To all you comedians out there, thank you for getting us through this difficult presidency. Here’s a little song that explains the American entertainment situation.

DIFFERENT JOKES

sung to the tune of the TV theme song (the original) “Diff’rent Strokes” with apologies to whomever the rights may concern.

Well, Americans won’t-long apPROVE, of elitists and-a-prez who’s dumb.

When the Right screws the poor, they screw everyone.

Trump acts like a slumlord, he’s a man of means. He’s mocked as a buffoon, while there are serious scenes.

But we’ve got, different jokes, it takes, different jokes, it takes, different jokes, to move the world.

The United States has an exceptional story. Entertainers are always in your face.

The internet and idiot box, cause brain rot. So what? They cheer us. They give us hope. It’s an infinite space.

And together we’ll start over.

It takes, different jokes, it takes, different jokes, it takes, different jokes to move the world.

My World – BONUS POST

Please note: The word “Featured” on the left side above, was entered by WordPress, and cannot be removed. NO post in this blog is sponsored.

As is well known, AI software is the conduit through which Trump’s shenanigans are conveyed. His handlers let him be chief spokesman so that HE alone gets blamed for all the nation’s problems. BUT Trump has dementia, so anonymous bad actors are actually to blame! They carry out his alleged orders to besmirch his name forever in the history books.

This will continue until Trump has irreversible cessation of vital body functions.

Infuriatingly for many people, not much will change even after that, because mostly rich white men will still rule the United States; they have been doing so since the country’s founding.

The media network FOX will continue to try to “put lipstick on this pig.” Here’s what AI is singing on Trump’s behalf.

MY WORLD

sung to the tune of “My Girl” with apologies to Smokey Robinson, The Temptations and to whomever else the rights may concern.

I hear LIBerals-whine, in this prosperous day.

When you’re on my side, I keep our foes at bay.

I rest and play, and I always get my way.

My world, my world, my world, doubling down in my world. MY world.

I’ve got so much money, Bibi envies me.

I get to stay on top because no one wants anarchy.

Well, I rest and play, and I always get my way. My world, my world, my world. Doubling down in my world. My world.

I always need honeys, and fortune and fame. I’ve made all the riches lately, one man can claim.

Well, I rest and play, and I always get my way. My world, my world, my world. Doubling down in my world. My world.

I’m superior to JFK in my world. I’ve always won every game in my world. Doubling down, doubling down. My world, woo, my world. That’s all anyone can talk about is my world…

On My Watch

The Book of the Week is “On My Watch, Leading NATO in a Time of War” by Jens Stoltenberg, with Per Anders Madsen, published in 2025. This hodgepodge of a volume alternated in describing snippets of world history from all different centuries, and the major military conflicts of the world from the 2010’s onward.

The Norwegian author served as secretary general of NATO for ten years, beginning in October 2014. There is always controversy over which group– the EU or NATO– should militarily aid a NATO member that is attacked. And since its inception, NATO has had its intrigue and James Bond wannabes. “At the end of September [2021] we expelled eight Russians who were accredited as diplomats to NATO, but who in reality were active intelligence agents.” Periodically, NATO nations hold summits. Attendees of the 2021 London summit discussed a ten-year plan in connection with climate change, infrastructure, cyber-threats and China.

In early 2020, the Trump administration struck a deal with the Taliban behind closed doors, without other NATO members present. All American soldiers (after 40 years of CIA-shenanigans), and NATO troops (after twenty years of ups and downs) were to leave Afghanistan by the end of April 2021, subject to the following conditions to which the Taliban agreed (nod-nod, wink-wink):

draft a new Constitution for Afghanistan;
have the Taliban’s soldiers join the regular Afghan military;
stop launching terrorist attacks;
sever its alliance with al-Qaeda.

By summer 2020, Trump had changed his mind, and wanted all American troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. He thought that promising to “bring our boys home” would help him get reelected president in 2020.

For a different reason, the author’s colleague agreed that withdrawing all troops was a wise move. From an economic standpoint, throwing bad money after bad money was stupid, and the participating nations should have cut their losses long before then.

Over the course of four decades, alpha males with hubris syndrome couldn’t face the reality that Afghanistan’s people consist of numerous tribes who have been fighting one another for hundreds of years and their vendettas are not going to stop anytime soon. Afghans are insular, and so would reject outsiders’ (the EU, UN or NATO) coming in to supervise the leadership of their territory.

On a larger scale, countries of the world have their shifting alliances and hostilities. The Ukraine war which began in 2022 had China, North Korea and Iran supplying military resources to Russia, while NATO supplied weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

Read the book to learn much more about the author’s take on, and how he dealt with delicate diplomatic situations.

Timebends, A Life

The Book of the Week is “Timebends, A Life” by Arthur Miller, published in 1987.

Born in 1915 in New York City, Arthur Miller was an internationally famous playwright best known for Death of A Salesman and The Crucible.

Miller commented that in 1932, ordinary Americans were out of money and hope, and the Republicans were out of ideas. In 1952, the Republicans were extremely furious that the Democrats had had a stranglehold on the American government for twenty years. Miller was a participant in an informal think tank of intellectuals– academics, writers and artists, and as was common for the time– who were also heavy drinkers and smokers. They were at wits’ end trying to counter the overwhelming, vicious anti-Communist propaganda of the political Right.

In 1948, Miller and his friend, an Italian attorney, met the mafioso Lucky Luciano in Sicily. In exchange for having three cartons of American cigarettes taken from them, Miller and his guide got a free road-tour of the island. Curiously, at every gas station, their driver wasn’t charged for fuel, either.

In the early 1950’s, Miller tried psychoanalysis, which was the latest thing among deep thinkers like himself. However, he gave it up, as he feared that digging too deeply into his subconscious might curb his creativity, which would mean the loss of his livelihood.

The [U.S. government’s] House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) maximized its power to terrorize all Americans by convincing them that Communists were conspiring to take over the country. BUT the Communist Party had been legal in the 1930’s and 1940’s– the period when the accused had allegedly been associated with it, or knew those associated with it. In many cases, by the end of the 1940’s, the accused had shed their ties to it, so at the time allegations surfaced in the 1950’s– there was no illegality. Even the accused who were actually guilty, were denied due process.

Besides, in the United States, the Communist Party and its front had had mostly Socialist, not Communist goals. There was, and still remains so much ignorance about the two ideologies. In this blog, do a keyword search for “Communist” and “Socialist” to become informed.

Miller forgave Hollywood-director Elia Kazan for naming names of alleged Communists he’d interacted with when HUAC pressured him into doing so. Miller argued that if Kazan had not caved, his career would have been ruined, so he wouldn’t have made any more emotionally moving movies with socially valuable messages; the same way some politicians who make ethically difficult choices by voting on legislation that will harm their constituents, are doing it to get reelected so that they may continue to do more good for their constituents in the long run.

On the other hand, in recent decades, laws have been changed to make excessively unethical behavior legal. So most of the disgusting behavior of America’s leaders is lawful, regardless of the leaders’ unconscionable greed and hubris. One ray of hope indicating that the United States still has democracy, is that it still has two political parties– one to rein in the other.

Read the book to learn a lot more about Arthur Miller’s life and times, generally a rerun of earlier times.

The Conscience of A Liberal

The Book of the Week is “The Conscience of A Liberal, Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda” by Paul Wellstone, published in 2001. This career memoir humbly recounted the author’s triumphs and setbacks in community organizing and changing the world.

Wellstone, an idealist, and Democrat from Minnesota, got elected the first time he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1990. He explained that his proposal for a single-payer national healthcare system, would eliminate health insurance companies altogether– so of course the insurance industry lobbied against it.

Wellstone described how crucial the early weeks of pregnancy are for the lifelong health of the child. After about three weeks of gestation, the child’s “neural tube” begins to form. Epilepsy, mental retardation, autism or schizophrenia can result if these cells are damaged in any way by what the mother ingests, inhales, or any illness or injury she suffers. So coverage earmarked for maternal care in a healthcare bill might be a good idea.

On another topic, Wellstone voted against president Clinton’s welfare-to-work bill in June 1996. The senator spoke with multitudes of his constituents who were on welfare. If they were required to work, especially if they headed a single-parent household, they would actually become poorer, because, given the kind of low-level job they could get– the total food, housing and healthcare benefits they would lose– would likely exceed their wages. And they would have to pay for childcare. Or additional education.

Such is the situation for culturally-disadvantaged people stuck in the poverty cycle in America. Factor in social ills such as addiction, domestic violence, poor health, etc., that people in higher economic strata are better able to afford to deal with– and the problems of those “working poor” actually multiply, because one thing leads to another.

For the above reasons, many Democrats felt Clinton was siding with the cold, heartless Republicans. Moreover, unsurprisingly, at the book’s writing, the United States was dead last in the rankings of 26 top industrialized nations in “protecting children against gun violence.”

Wellstone wrote that during the 1993-1994 election year, one of his fellow senators cast several votes against his conscience with the goal of getting reelected. He lost the election anyway. Wellstone himself claimed he usually resisted peer pressure.

Wellstone made suggestions of how the government could reverse its greedy ways. One he hoped more state governments would implement, was to allow an option of state candidates to run “clean money” campaigns. At the book’s writing, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maine and Vermont let candidates opt to spend campaign dollars they received from only a publicly financed fund; rather than from private donors who expected a quid pro quo, and nowadays, almost always get it, thanks to campaign finance laws that resemble Swiss cheese, what with loopholes.

As is well known, representative democracy in the United States has become a combination greedfest / power trip. Ordinary Americans (ones who have no powerful political connections), in order to change laws, can’t afford to:

pay for trips for senators and congresspeople;
donate millions of dollars to candidates to get quid pro quos;
have lawyers at the ready if they’re called out on any illegal behavior;
hire lobbyists.

Wellstone did say BOTH PARTIES were to blame for this mess.

Read the book to learn much more about the occasions in which Wellstone formed coalitions with his opposition in order to try to pass legislation, how they horse-traded to get their pork, or block laws they didn’t want passed.

I Watch Fox – BONUS POST

As is well known, the integrity of the United States is in decline, due to human-rights violations and corruption. Outing perpetrators by naming names might deter American officials from lying, cheating and stealing in the future. A few current perpetrators with conflicts (stock profiteers) include:

Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA)
Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX)
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK)
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI)
Rep Joseph Gottheimer (D-NJ)
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

Google seems to be anti-Irish on those Republicans. Anyway, the manipulation of behavioral economics for evil, requires that there be messengers to help the ringleader / strongman acquire power and stay in power. Fox-TV personalities such as Sean Hannity, Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters fit the bill. While “paying their dues” they themselves must behave like strongmen– making high-powered contacts with whom they exchange favors throughout their careers.

In connection therewith, this Bertrand Russell quote cannot be repeated enough:

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”

American leaders can’t admit to themselves how much they’re damaging our democracy. See this blog’s post, “In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz” to note the similarities between the Congo’s kleptocracy of 1997 and the United States’ kleptocracy of 2026.

Here’s a song about it– what Trump is singing.

I WATCH FOX AND TROLL ALL NIGHT

sung to the tune of “Rock and Roll All Night” with apologies to KISS and to whomever else the rights may concern.

A Google search of “KISS songs” omits this song in the search-results because it’s a bad influence on America’s youths.

I’ll never SHOW you everything I’ve got. I keep on ranting about getting shot.

I drive liberals wild. My record’s amazing.

I am the one who makes the world spin. My party’s just begun to win, win, win.

I drive liberals wild. My record’s amazing.

They keep on pouting. They keep on pouting.

I watch Fox and troll all night, and profit every day.

I know you know I’m your prez for all time.

We’re great again, and I’m in my prime.

I drive liberals wild. My record’s amazing.

I’ll never SHOW you everything I’ve got.

I am great, and it’s quite a lot, and I drive liberals wild. My record’s amazing.

They keep on pouting. They keep on pouting.

I watch Fox and troll all night, and profit every day.

$ $ $

American playwright Arthur Miller wrote that there was uncertainty as to whether the United States could recover from the Great Depression which was plaguing the country when he was in his teens. In those days, though, Americans blamed themselves for their own personal problems.

There was a lot less scapegoating, litigiousness, and self-absorbed attention whoredom than now. Only white men had a sense of entitlement then.

So, how can the United States recover from its latest bout of capitalist excesses?

Well, there but for the grace of science and cooperation was the United States able to recover from the Great Depression, to become the powerhouse it became. Science has:

fueled vaccines, drugs and quantum leaps in medicine;
helped create the atomic bomb that curtailed the Second World War;
helped win the Space Race against the Soviets;
fueled Silicon Valley’s innovations.

So, the United States must reverse the anti-science, anti-intellectual, divisive agenda of the Republicans.