Category: Politics – Miscellaneous

Hacks and Todd Blanche – BONUS POST

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Here’s a song about the sorry state of affairs at the Justice Department.

HACKS AND TODD BLANCHE

sung to the tune of “Jack and Diane” with apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Little ditty ’bout hacks and Todd Blanche.

They’re DOJ busybodies in Never-Never Land.

Jeanine Pirro thinks she’s a reality show star.

Blanche does witch hunts similar to Bill Barr’s.

Suckin’ at prosecuting, the accused who walk free.

Blanche pushes Trump’s crap. Lawyers quit. There’s mutiny.

Why haven’t Blanche and his gang been impeached?

Congress and their-donors are crooks, and they do what they please.

Sigh. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. With Fox on.

Jeanine set us back on the “reflecting pool” of the moment.

Her dispatches were as disgusting as VP JD’s.

Well then there Todd Blanche is Trump’s chump without pity.

Todd Blanche says “Slaves, you ain’t SEEing nothing.”

Fox is playing. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

No rule-of-law for them. Others they probe. Ain’t a man alive who could can save their souls. They boost Fox’s ratings as long as they can. Next charade is coming around real soon. A few’ll get country-club pris-ON.

Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone. Oh yeah, the Right keeps on, long after the thrill of bitching is gone.

Little ditty ’bout hacks and Todd Blanche. They get their kicks criminalizing our land.

The Snowball

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The Book of the Week is “The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” by Alice Schroeder, published in 2008. This authorized biography described how one of the world’s richest men, accumulated his wealth.

Born at the end of August 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, Buffett was obsessed with making money. He became the general partner of the eventual conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, an initially money-losing textile company.

In August 1991, a financial scandal broke at the bond brokerage, Salomon Brothers. One representative, on various occasions, had broken the law to corner a specific government-securities market in auctions. His indiscretions, about which his bosses knew and took no disciplinary action for months, cost Salomon’s competition $100 million.

Buffett was tasked with restoring Salomon’s reputation and his own, as he was a major investor in the firm. “Everything at Salomon was turned topsy-turvy as the new culture of openness went into effect.”

BUT, the late college basketball coach John Wooden always said– one should worry about one’s character, not one’s reputation. One’s character is indicated by the following cliche: “When you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” In other words, if you associate with people of bad character– stooping to their level, your own bad character will be exhibited.

Buffett helped punish the former executives at fault, by refusing to pay their legal fees and severance pay. The main perpetrator went to arbitration to restore his severance pay. The arbitrators ruled against him; he didn’t get a penny. The book’s author commented it was unclear why he was perceived to have been punished so severely.

As securities-industry insiders, those arbitrators were wisely trying to hold up the perpetrator as an example– to deter future bad behavior. Clearly, unmitigated hubris and unconscionable greed was “in the air” and was not going to stop anytime soon.

Numerous monster-sized financial scandals caused havoc in markets worldwide from the late 1980’s onward. Countless innocent people were fired– who had nothing to do with the scandals! The author omitted the inconvenient fact that in 1993, an unsupervised, rogue bond-department trader at Kidder Peabody caused that firm to go belly-up.

Buffett was a strong believer in pay-for performance. He drastically slashed Salomon’s employee bonuses because they didn’t perform– make money for Salomon’s shareholders, who were the real owners of the firm. Unsurprisingly, the employees were mad as hell, and thought the billionaire Buffett was a hypocrite. By the mid-1990’s, prosecutors would act aggressively to indict financial law-breakers unless they showed “extreme contrition and cooperation” when caught. How times have changed.

The leadership of the United States has been reduced to a small group of alpha males with hubris syndrome and their lawyers, running the country like a corrupt Wall Street brokerage. Economic decline is inevitable, unless the next president behaves the way Buffett did– legally requiring transparency and competence rather than loyalty. He or she must bring adult supervision to the major drains on the nation’s treasury: war / military spending, tax cuts, space exploration, and in the most recent twelve years– litigation.

Anyway, read the book to learn much, much more about Buffett, his family, and his times.

Let’s Rant – BONUS POST

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This is what Trump’s handlers are singing to the GOP and Fox on his behalf.

LET’S RANT

sung to the tune of “Let’s Dance” with apologies to the Estate of David Bowie and to whomever else the rights may concern.

ah ah ah ah

Let’s rant. I oversee voting results, and we can’t lose.

Let’s rant, to my song I’m playing in the media.

Let’s rename, everywhere that shall BE my place.

Let’s rename, through my crowd, we’ll have outer space.

If you say no, I’ll fire you.

If I say AI, it’s AI, AI, AI, AI.

Because I rule over you, you must obey my crew.

We can’t let Iran, have nuclear arms, and others have any power.

Let’s rant. Let’s rant.

It’s clear I’m having a ball.

Let’s rant. It’s clear I’ll never fall.

Let’s rename. It’s all my enterprise.

Let’s rename, under my spotlight. It’s my spotlight.

If you say no, I’ll fire you.

If I say AI, it’s AI, AI, AI, AI.

Because I rule over you, you must obey my crew.

We can’t let Iran, have nuclear arms, and others have any power.

Let’s rant. I oversee voting results, and we can’t lose.

Let’s rename, under my spotlight. It’s my spotlight.

Let’s rename…

The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen

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The Book of the Week is “The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, True Nature” by Lance Richardson, published in 2025.

Born in May 1927, Matthiessen was a son of white male privilege. He came of age in Connecticut, and on the eastern end of Long Island, New York State.

Matthiessen was the black sheep of the family, becoming a “bad boy” from adolescence onward; making mischief by throwing rocks at and shooting BB’s at cars. At his boarding school, he interrupted a violin quartet recital with a case of the giggles (later loosely duplicated in that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine does so at a piano recital) that became contagious. When the headmaster tried to see who started it, Matthiessen pretended to be horrified by his fellow students’ rudeness.

After his midlife crisis, in his forties, Matthiessen began to write about causes he cared about, especially environmentalism and Native Americans. In 1970, he published a nonfiction book, Sal Si Puedes. It was about environmentalism, and then-current events in America. He felt that the way people thought about nature, ran parallel to the way they thought about economic, social and political issues. “In damaged human habitat, all problems merge.”

Not everyone is intelligent enough to see how one thing leads to another; there are currently numerous Americans who– out of greed, power-hunger, jealousy of successful alpha males with hubris syndrome, or selfishness– can tolerate their own cognitive dissonance. They hold contradictory attitudes toward the different issues. The political Right constantly smears those who agree that all issues are connected– ignorantly labeling those people who believe in ethics– Liberals, Communists, and Socialists.

Mathiessen claimed he felt bad about going to live among peoples of different cultures in order to sell information about them in the books he wrote. Such exploitation has been going on for centuries among journalists and social scientists. But in some instances, the native peoples benefit when the writers publicize how the “white man” is swindling them. Pursuant to those rare political times favorable for them, the victims acquire a little bit of power and compensation for the damage done to them.

Matthiessen practiced “New Journalism” by writing a personal account of his interviews with Cesar Chavez, who advocated for the union, United Farm Workers. Chavez began a grassroots movement that tried to get Americans to value dignity and justice, amid the “worrisome national trends of materialism, poverty and ecological decline.” Good luck with that, all. That still has yet to be accomplished for the past century.

Read the book to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Matthiessen– his writings, love affairs, travels, trials and tribulations.

Vance’s Star is Rising – BONUS POST

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VANCE’S STAR IS RISING

sung to the tune of “Bad Moon Rising” with apologies to Creedence Clearwater Revival and to whomever else the rights may concern.

I see, Vance’s star a-rising.

I see, a frat boy on the way.

I see, hypocrisy and fighting.

I see, a Trump Mini-Me today.

Forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

I hear, hot air a-blowing.

I know, Trump’s end is coming soon.

I feel, the swamp is overflowing.

I see, the metaphor of-the-reflecting pool.

Forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

Let’s all, go vote together.

Keep calm. Two years will fly by.

We’ll have to endure more nasty-endeavors. Our taxes are stolen by-the-by.

Well, forget the evil Right, or you’re bound to waste your life.

Vance’s star is on the rise.

How to Save the Amazon

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The Book of the Week is “How to Save the Amazon, A Journalist’s Quest for Answers” by Dom Phillips and various authors, published in 2025. This hodgepodge of a volume listed various issues related to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest, which spans eight different countries. Nevertheless, the title was misleading in that all the articles except for one about Cost Rica– were about the Amazon region in Brazil.

Over the decades, there has been a tug of war between monetizing of, and attempting to enforce laws to protect the Amazon region, involving:

  • changing politics
  • supply and demand for real estate
  • supply and demand for products such as fossil fuels, fish, fruits and nuts.

Anyway, simply enacting laws, and then underfunding and understaffing the laws’ enforcement NEVER works in such an environmentally delicate, resource-rich region where the people born there have a simple lifestyle, and aren’t sufficiently powerful to defend their way of life against exploitation of their land.

For decades, business people have worked around the Amazon river in gold mining, commercial fishing, logging, rubber tapping, farming, oil wildcatting, and cattle ranching (beef production).

On and off, Brazil’s government agencies, and the Pastoral Land Commission (a Catholic organization) have assisted the Indigenous people who have small farms in the region. There had been programs similar to those implemented in the western United States in the 1800’s, of homesteading and sharecropping. BUT, more than half of the population of Brazil consists of Amazon-region residents (Indigenous peoples) whose dark skin makes them subject to discrimination.

There are tens of different Indigenous peoples who choose to live in the region, isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Their mentality is described in the song, “Colors of the Wind” from the Disney movie soundtrack Pocahontas. One Indigenous individual interviewed by one of the authors wrote, “That land could be owned by a single person is unthinkable to us because everyone’s survival depends on it.”

The Indigenous peoples and NGOs are the only people who should be stewards of the land, because they live and work there, on the ground. Outsiders are mostly bureaucrats and exploiters.

One can get a bank to finance cattle-ranching, as beef production is a major way to make the land productive. So the government encourages homesteaders to go into cattle-ranching. However, it deforests the land.

The entrepreneurs behave like organized crime syndicates– ruthlessly killing people who obstruct their illegal profiteering, and donating big bucks to political candidates to perpetuate their lawlessness.

In addition, ironically, the Indigenous people aid and abet the entrepreneurs! They serve as slave labor in the entrepreneurs’ businesses because their education and skills are insufficient to make a living otherwise.

Bottom line: the Amazon rain forest is one of the few remaining resource-rich regions on earth that has yet to be completely looted– that could still be used for more good than evil.

Read the book to learn about: the annual Davos-like conference called COP where the (mostly greedy, power-hungry) attendees pretend to wring their hands over the destruction of the Amazon rain forest; the entrepreneurs who do agroforestry; the dreamers who want to turn their land into environmentally friendly utopias; and the one small cause for optimism that can improve the situation (hint: high-technology satellite images can measure deforestation).

Here I Win Again -BONUS POST

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This is what Trump’s handlers are singing on his behalf.

HERE I WIN AGAIN

sung to the tune of “Here You Come Again” with apologies to the Estate of Dolly Parton, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Here I win again, just when I’ve made MAGA even better. I cut prices even more, and won the Iran war. And flash the Dumbocrats my middle finger.

Here I win again. Just when Graham’s base is gathering a-BOUT me, the stock market’s on the rise. I deliver the prize. With my people and redistricting, they couldn’t live without me.

All I gotta do is sign an executive order, and my enemies have no power. Everything’s up to me, and IN grand style, I’m messing up their minds, and firing my women by-the-hour.

Here I win again. My SCOTUS and Post Office, I have a right to, and greatening us so, my monuments are a go. Here I win again. I run the show.

All I gotta do is sign an executive order, and my enemies have no power. Everything’s up to me, and IN grand style, I’m messing up their minds, and firing my women by-the-hour.

Here I win again. My SCOTUS and Post Office, I have a right to, and greatening us so, my monuments are a go. Here I win again. I run the show.

I run the show, I run the show, I run the show. Here. I win again. I run the show…

The Strongman Mash – BONUS POST

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There will be at least two more years of suffering under this Trump regime. Here’s a song about it in a nutshell.

STRONGMAN MASH

sung to the tune of “Monster Mash” with apologies to Estate of Bobby Pickett, the Crypt Kicker 5, and to whomever else the rights may concern.

Trump did scheming for a power GRAB with the greedy Right. Our eyes behold, a traumatic sight, for this dictator with his cult, has damaged us all, and his inner circle has yet to fall.

He does his mash. He does the strongman mash. The strongman mash. It caused a political crash. He does his mash. It is extremely brash. He does his mash. He does the strongman mash.

From destabilizing the Middle East, to wanting a ballroom where his cronies feast. His sleazy donors all kiss his ass, to get deregulated by his top brass.

They do the mash. They do the strongman mash. The strongman mash. It caused a political crash. They do the mash. It is extremely brash. They do the mash. They do the strongman mash.

The fraternity is having fun. Democracy is coming undone. Many deaths have been caused by their actions, and the deaths have just begun.

The scene is shocking. Their greed knows no bounds: Trump’s muddled brain, backed by Fox’s baying clowns.

A political reversal is about to arrive. But for now Trump’s gang is still alive.

They do the mash. They do the strongman mash. The strongman mash. It caused a political crash. They do the mash. It is extremely brash. They do the mash. They do the strongman mash.

Out from his coffin, Trump’s voice does ring, seems he is troubled by many things. He stomps his feet and balls his fists and cries, I won the 2020 election, and Dems are CommunISTS!

He does his mash. He does the strongman mash. The strongman mash. It caused a political crash. He does his mash. It is extremely brash. He does his mash. He does the strongman mash.

Now his cruelty is uncool. Musk’s a part of his band. And his strongman mash is wrecking our land. If you don’t worship him, his mash targets you. When they come to your door, have a Supreme-Court-Justice with you.

But Trump can strongman mash. The strongman mash. It’s a political crash. Then he can mash. You’ll catch hell in a flash. Then he can mash. Then he can strongman mash…

The Dope

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The Book of the Week is “The Dope, The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade” by Benjamin T. Smith, published in 2021.

In this wordy and redundant volume, the author mostly stuck to his subject of narcotics– opium, heroin and cocaine, but also mentioned marijuana (not considered a narcotic nowadays). From the 1800’s, there have always been legal loopholes allowing stakeholders to sell narcotics.

The cycle of changing politics, supply and demand of specific illegal drugs, enforcement efforts and violence, have become a cliche in both the United States and Mexico. The author mentioned France, Canada, Colombia, Peru and China in passing, but failed to mention other narcotics sources and hubs that might be relevant to the story, such as Bolivia, Panama and Central Asia.

Anyway, destroying narcotics supplies and distribution networks NEVER works when politicians and law enforcement are trying to get rid of certain kinds of drugs. In a few years, entrepreneurs will always have found a way to make money from other kinds of drugs, or other enterprises– such as protection rackets. The same old corruption and atrocities return, time and time again. Unsurprisingly, it is actually ulterior political motives and the profit-motive that drive the cycle.

Starting in the late 1800’s, opium was a drug whose regulatory crackdown was an excuse for a smear campaign against Chinese immigrants in Mexico City– the major makers of it. In the nineteen teens, Americans zipped down to Tijuana or Mexicali in Mexico to get their fill of gambling, the sex trade and alcohol.

In June 1916, the governor of Baja, California put on a show, pretending to ban opium and shutting down its distribution, and killed some Chinese drug traffickers. It was a charade because the black market on opium stayed alive and well and the drugs’ stakeholders paid the governor protection money. With the minimum portion of that money he needed to spend to stay in power, he did public-works projects and funded schools in his district, imposing mandatory education.

In the 1920’s, goon squads in Mexico City raided Chinese stores and arrested anyone with opium paraphernalia. That same decade, the state of California passed anti-vice laws that adversely affected the Chinese.

In 1925, in Mexico, the secret service agent who investigated and prosecuted members of a large Mexico City heroin ring, became the new chief law-enforcement officer, and eventually the new drug kingpin. The year 1936 saw Mexico again become a hub for illegal narcotics going to the U.S.

In early 1940, Mexico tried a new policy: opening dispensaries that allowed addicts to get their fix at a discount while still holding down a low-skilled job, in order to put black-marketeers out of business. Yes, street-crime in the local areas fell because addicts no longer had to steal to stay alive.

However, the head of the U.S. Treasury was against the dispensaries. He was “supremely pragmatic and with only a passing interest in the actual facts, he would go on to blame U.S. narcotics addiction on an almost comically incoherent litany of shady conspiracies…” He was the one who decided which countries’ narcotics were medicinal only, not recreational; only the medicinal could be imported into the U.S. The dispensaries were shut down in a few months.

President Nixon (with his usual “public humiliation, manufactured panic and diplomatic bullying”) started anti-narcotics hysteria in his first term. But the series of anti-narcotics operations implemented in Mexico by American presidents and law-enforcement from the late 1960’s to the mid-1980’s, never did reduce the overall addiction rates of Americans, because other countries picked up the slack.

Around 2006, Mexico became like the red-light district of Amsterdam. Former members of Mexico’s military in the Zeta drug cartel violated what in the United States were the “RICO” laws, amply aided by gun violence.

Read the book to learn a boatload more about: how untold amounts of American taxpayers’ monies have been wasted in all different ways on trying to fight the drug wars; what roles shifting power structures (involving different stakeholders including but not limited to PJF, DFS, DEA, ICE agents, drug traffickers and cartels), weapons (guns, grenades, bazooka missiles), herbicides, deaths (lots of them!), and marijuana have played in the narcotics shenanigans in the last hundred years.