The Wicked Bible and Trump Depression.

It's May 8th everybody, hurray!  This is the day readers in 1631 were shocked, or pleased by today's standards, to read in the King James Bible:  "Thou shalt commit adultery."  No shit, this became known as the "Wicked Bible" or the "Adulterous Bible," and on May 8th 1631 the printers were hauled before the fearsome Star Chamber for their blasphemous mistakes.  Fortunately, they were only heavily fined and banned from their profession instead of mutilated as so often happened by the church back then.  My only guestion is this:  What about the other criminal parts in the bible that weren't changed?  Like (resourced from American Humanist Association):

 ...the Inquisition; the Crusades; the burning of witches; religious wars; pogroms against Jews; persecution of homosexuals; forceful conversions of heathens; slavery; beatings of children; brutal treatment of the mentally ill; suppression of scientists; and whippings, mutilations, and violent executions of persons convicted of crimes. Those acts were a regular part of the Christian world for centuries and in some ways, still are.

Trump signs bible.

Trump bible signature.

Thomas Paine

As Thomas Paine said: “It (the bible) is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.”

 Ouch, so there you have it boys and girls, what's in your bible? 

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On this day in 1980 the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been successfully eradicated as a disease; unfortunately, Ronald Reagan was also elected that year as our first Slash and Burn president and the Republican Starve the Beast tax cuts for the rich, War on Science, and deregulation for all, began.  Since that time we haven't cured shit, we've only found ways to postpone diseases with Big Pharma meds meant to make a shit load of money at the expense of you and me.  

Wake up people, you're a lobster in hot water not seeing what's happening.  The next step is kill social security.  In a Motley Fool article today, they point out that Trump's budgets have all called for Social Security Cuts, and without reelection concerns if he is reelected, he'll surely cut the shit out of it (I paraphrase, read the complete article here). 

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Finally, May 8th in the day Harry S Truman was born.  Here's what he said about the depression:  "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, it's a depression whey you lose yours." 






Now you know. 

Let Them Drink Bleach With Their Cake.

I wanted to blog about some good news this morning, good news like the fact that there are only a few hundred tobacco-spitting right-wing nut protestors out-and-about with their assault riffles pointed at us while the good majority of us are staying at home being the silent majority as usual.  A fact that shows you their true numbers are way lower than ours, way, like a few-hundred thousand to millions.  The big question is why do they get so much news coverage for their small numbers?  Answer:  because the 1% Corporate Elite want it that way.  

Did you know that there is a true peoples protest going on that triples the size of these Trump/Hate protest?  Since 2018 the Poor People's Campaign has held protest with marchers in the thousands, but, because it is a real bottom-up protest you don't get it on your CNN, MSNBC, and F*&ked, I mean, Fox News feeds.  It was the same with the Dakota Access Pipeline protest where thousands were protesting the pipeline everyday and it got zilch coverage by the mainstream press. 

Here's the good news: just like with the French revolution when Marie Antoinette told us to "Shut-the-f&*k up and eat cake (paraphrased)," and it led to the violent revolution that gave us today's democracy, or in 1968 when young Americans stood up to the war machine and said they wouldn't die for the draft dodging Donald Trump's of the day, the people's will was eventually done as it always is in the end.  And it is this fact that scares the Berkshire Hathaway Shit out of them (fyi, Berkshire Hathaway is a stock that only the 1% can buy according to SwoopWoop.)  Of course, you can never trust what you read.  

So, brothers and sisters, be strong, be proud, and be the silent majority you are.  They are pushing the last of their Hate Warriors out on us now because our victory is near! 

Remember, we will crawl over glass to vote this November, and they know it!

Cinco de Mayo is not what you think it is, it's even better!

It's May 5th, 2020.  I showed you the beach scene in Florida yesterday with the guy giving a brodacious bro-hug to a beach patrol officer, unprotected... 

...well, brothers and sisters, the madness continues.  Yesterday in Austin Texas, a park ranger was pushed in the river for telling people to keep a "safe 6 foot distance"...

... and if that wasn't enough, a man was shot in Michigan after asking a patron of a dollar store to wear a face mask!@*((*!  (No video available, thank goodness.)


Fortunately, May 5th hasn't always been this bad, historically speaking that is, for:

On this day in 1862, the unofficial holiday of Cinco de Mayo begins, which might surprise you, but it is more of a U.S. holiday than anywhere else, according to "On This Date" by Carl M. Cannon.  

The unofficial holiday is assumed by gringos, and even many Hispanics, to be a Mexican version of July 4.  That's not accurate.  Although Cinco de Mayo ostensibly celebrates a temporal military victory by the Mexican Army over a French expeditionary force in the city of Puebla on this date, it was an occasion that took hold among Mexicans living north of the border as a way of commemorating their Union sympathies in America's Civil War. 

News traveled slowly in the mid-nineteenth century, so Mexican miners working in California's Mother Lode region didn't learn of Mexico's victory by the Puebla defenders over the French troops dispatched to North America by Napoleon III until three weeks after the fact.  Once they heard, though, the party started.  In some ways, it's never stopped. 

In the gold Rush country of Northern California, fireworks were set off; rifles were fired into the air at mining camps in Nevada; spontaneous fiestas broke out in labor camps as far north as Oregon.  The most organized celebrations among the vast Mexican diaspora in the West were held in Los Angeles, where Mexican-American politicians hosted rallies and delivered patriotic speeches.  Many Americans believed that the French intention was to arm the Confederacy of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.  This was an overblown fear, but Cinco de Mayo was a chance for Mexican-Americas living in California to revel in their loyalty to the Union. 

A dozen years before, many Mexican-American politicians had changed their citizenship without changing their addresses when California was admitted to the United states as the thiryt-first state.  Like St. Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo first became an American holiday re-exported back to the country of its origin and, then, one disseminated ot the four corners of the Earth. 

Mexican-born Jose M. Alamillo, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University, Channel Islands, first heard of Cinco de Mayo in elementary school--after moving to the United States with his family when he was eight.  "It's not a Mexican holiday, not an American holiday, but an American-Mexican holiday," Alamillo told Time Magazine.  "They had to kind of make the case for fighting for freedom and democracy and they were able to link the struggle of Mexico to the struggle of the Civil War, so there were simultaneous fights for democracy."

Today, fittingly, it has evolved into a broader and equally noble cause:  celebrating the ethnic diversity that makes this free country a rich and vibrant cultural mixing bowl.

Chew on that Sir Donald Trump!  It's another thing in the world not about you!

Florida Beach Reopens, We're All Gonna Die!

So the radical right is really out of control.  Seems one of the Yankee Red Necks in Michigan shot a security guard for telling him to put on a face mask at a dollar store.  WTF.  Then, I was watching this report on MSNBC this afternoon which showed the opening of beaches in Florida.  The news guy said the beach bathers were being responsible and practicing safe social distancing.  The problem is that one of the beach patrol vehicles was left in the shot showing a long-haired guy walk up to the vehicle without a mask on and hug a guy in the vehicle while shaking his hair like a wet dog.  Have a look:

Green Pastures forever: a poem by Dr TV Boogie.

There has to be a better way.   Really.  All we want is peace, love, and green pastures forever.  


When I was a kid, I spoke as a kid, I said things like, "We don't need no stinking visa."  

Yesterday I saw a group of masked men waving assaults rifles at the capital. 

Do they really want to kill me, my ideas?  I wondered.  

What have I done wrong? 


I knew then there would be revolution, soon.  A real revolution without NRA sponsorship.  A people's revolution.  

Green pastures forever. 

a poem by Dr TV Boogie. 

The True Purpose of the Gargoyles

Carnivorous Monster Orders Companies to Stay Open

Donald Trump finally used his power as president to force companies to work for the greater good of the whole.  Was it a manufacturing company to product more face-mask in a safe work environment for the general public?  No.  Was it the banks to make more Small Business Loans to those in need?  No.  Was it the pharmaceutical companies to offer free testing?  No.  Was it for the insurance companies to wave fees for test?  NO.

Then what was it? You ask. 

It was for the low-waged workers at meat factories to go back to work regardless of their work conditions.  

That's right, the list of meat factories still open where low-waged workers are dying are great.  There is  South Dakota where 230 people out of 720 have the Covid 19 virus; Tyson Foods in Waterloo, Iowa where 120 workers out of 1600 hundred tested positive;  and others such as Hormel Foods in Illinois, Greeley in Colorado, and Hormel in Minnesota, all are reporting high rates of infections by their employees because of the cramped spaces.   

So the carnivorous monster Trump (see pics), orders the companies to stay open no matter what so Americans can have their Sulphites.  Of course it is the message the wealthy business owners want to hear to cover their ass and so hallelujah, prays Jesus, let's eat!  Problem is, the workers are starting to stand up. 

 

Could this be Trumps Hoover moment?   In 1932 veterans protested in Washington DC to get paid their veteran bonuses.  Hoover's solution was to send in the military to forcefully remove them.   The rest is history: the ensuing raid proved catastrophic as the military injured dozens of people, including a twelve-week-old infant who was killed when accidentally struck by a tear gas canister.

It's time.  

~~ Radical Sam.



In other news:

Queen’s Brian May says the coronavirus pandemic is meat eaters’ fault

“This pandemic seemed to come from people eating animals, and it’s becoming more well known that eating animals is not the greatest thing for our health,” the 72-year-old tells NME.

“We’ve seen more of the effects of how eating animals has brought us to our knees as a species.  I think it’s time to re-examine our world in a way that doesn’t abuse other species.”

May, who converted to veganism in January, tells the music news site that he planned to be “a bit more preachy about veganism because to me it is the way forward.”

Space Aliens Are Fact... Hello!

On this day in 1945 Mussolini was pushed out of an automobile by Communist partisans and shot to death at the side of the road.  It is ironic that the man who brought on the downfall of Italy by joining it to the Nazis Axis in the Second World War should die on a road named Via XXIV Maggio to honor the date in 1915 when Italy joined the Allies in the First World War.  Equally as bizarre is that April 28th is the day in 1796 that Italy admitted defeat to Napoleon Bonaparte.  

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The Pentagon released a report yesterday that says the UFO videos leaked displaying Navy pilots saying things like, “There’s a whole fleet of them … My gosh, they’re all going against the wind, the wind is 120 knots to the west. Look at that thing dude...." is fact!

Think about it, they have just confirmed the existence of aliens aircraft?  Hello!  Is there anyone out there?  

 

"What I tell yah."

An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.

Edward Gibbon, by Henry Walton

Today we celebrate the birth of Edward Gibbon, the great historian who gloomily concluded that 'history is little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind'.

Born into an affluent family in Putney, Gibbon entered Oxford at fifteen but left after fourteen months, later describing them as 'the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.'

At sixteen he converted to Catholicism, which, under the laws of the time, disqualified him for all public office.  His outraged father sent him to Lausanne (French speaking province of Switzerland)  under the care of a Calvinist minister.  Eighteen months later Gibbon returned to Protestantism, but he remained a religious skeptic.  'Many a sober Christian,' he later wrote, 'would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.'

During his five years in Lausanne Gibbon perfected his French (his first books were written in it), met Voltaire, and fell in love with a pastor's daughter named Suzanne Curchod. But his father opposed the match and called him home to England, Gibbon obeyed, later remembering:  'I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.'  He never again came close to marriage.  (Gibbon's loss was history's gain, because Suzanne married Jacques Necker, to become French finance minister under Louis XVI, and was the mother of Madame de Staël.)

In 1763 Gibbon left for Paris and later moved on to Rome.  Then, 'It was at Rome on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.'

Club of Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and other luminaries.

Gibbon shortly returned to London.  A lonely and sombre figure -- small, ugly, and corpulent -- he washed so seldom that one contemporary complained that he could not bear to stand close to him.  Nonetheless, he was elected to Parliament and joined the famous Club of Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and other luminaries.  More importantly, now he started his great work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

This magnificent account covers more than thirteen centuries, ending with the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  Because of its elegant prose, compelling narrative and persuasive arguments, it is widely considered the greatest work of history ever written in English. 

The first volume was published in 1776, to tumultuous applause from the public but condemnation from the Church of England, offended by the author's depiction of Christianity as a primary cause for Rome's collapse.  Instead of eulogizing the early Christian martyrs, Gibbon claimed that 'the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country'. He was even more disparaging about Christianity's role after it became the empire's official religion:

The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity (...) A large portion of public and private wealth was concentrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. 

Five years later Gibbon published the second and third volumes and then returned to Lausanne to finish his masterwork, summarizing:  'I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion.'  He wrote the last lines on 27 June 1787 and published the final three volumes on his 51st birthday. 

Once more back in England, Gibbon was widely lionized for his achievement, although during the next century the art critic John Ruskin declared that: 'Gibbon's is the worst English that was ever written by an educated Englishman.'  But most have agreed with Winston Churchill:  'I devoured Gibbon, I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.'

Gibbon returned to Lausanne for his final years, writing: 'The abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.'  Overweight and suffering from an enlarged scrotum, he traveled to London in 1793 for surgery but died there the following January, possibly from infection caused by the surgery. 
(Excerpted from 'A Leap Year of Great Stories' by W.B. March and Bruce Carrick.) 


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Also of note on this, the 27th day of April, John F. Kennedy gives his 'Secret Society Speech'.  

 I linked the title to the complete speech, this speech was given after the Bay of Pigs debacle.  Funny that Kennedy thought he needed to condemn secret societies after that.  Should be a warning to us all even now.  

And speaking of now, there is a line from this speech that does reveals everything that is wrong with our current president:

"This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: 'An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.' We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them."

 John F Kennedy was our first Catholic president. 

A Break From the Trump Maddness on this Day in History.

It's funny how when something is put into thought, it becomes accessible to us all.   Take for instance WWII and the Crossword Panic of May 1944.  The Allied Forces were planning the liberation of France by landing in Normandy.  The operation was called "Operation Overlord."  Top Secret.   So, you can imagine how nuts the British secret service were when they noticed that crossword puzzles printed in the Daily Telegraph newspaper contained a surprisingly large number of words that were code-names relating to the coming invasion.  The answers to two clues were "Utah" and "Omaha"-- names that had been given to beaches in Normandy where American troops were to disembark.   Shortly afterwards, crosswords were published containing the answers "Mulberry," the code-name for the floating harbor, and "Neptune," a code-name for naval support.

At first, security agents were tempted to dismiss the whole matter as coincidence, but when a clue was given referring to a "Big-Wig," with the answer "Overlord," they began to worry that the crossword was somehow being used to warn the Germans.  Two officers were duly dispatched to interview the crossword compiler--a fifty-four-year-old teacher name Lenard Dawe.  After some close questioning, the agents became convinced that Dawe had no knowledge of the impending landings, and that his clues and their answers had indeed been a series of strange coincidence.

On this day in 1945, Soviet and American troops met at the River Elbe cutting Germany in two.  WWII was over and the Cold War had begun. 

Lenard Dawe

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On this day in 1989, Particia Hutchins, a military Wiccan stationed at an air force base in Texas, was granted religious leave by the United States Military in order to observe the eight Sabbats of the Wicca religion.  Ms Hutchins was the first Wiccan in history to have her religious holidays granted by the U.S. Air Force. 
Oddly enough, another woman by the same name wrote a Childrens book called Which Witch is Which?  

                                                                         

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Debunked:   Woman Farmer seen in Spain is Not Donald Trump! 

 

Or, is she?....

The Republican Party has created a monster no one can stop.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato 

I thought I would start today's blog with a quote from one of the great liberals of all time.  Plato said this almost 2500 years ago and it definitely details the problem with our current president; Sir Donald Trump.  

Yesterday, Dr. Rick Bright was demoted from his position as the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development.  In plain English:  the guy who was the most qualified to give us a vaccine for the Donald Trump Covid19 Debacle, was fired by Donald Trump because he opposed investing in the malaria drug Donald Trump has been pushing as a cure to Covid19.  Bright refused to pursue it for a more scientific solution like the one he helped create for the SARS epidemic under former president Obama that no one talks about because, well, because it didn't kill everyone.  It actually worked!!!  

Trump says he didn't fire the guy, but if you go to the .gov page to look Bright up, you get this message:

So WTF!   Combine this with the fact that Trump has a Stay At Home order for the country, but tweets in support of the fourteen rednecks revolting against the Stay At Home order by spitting chewing tobacco at passing cars in Michigan.   

Trump wants chaos.  Trump needs chaos because he knows there is no way in hell he can steal another election and so wants to have everything so screwed up he can dispute it.  

We ain't seen nothing yet people.  The Republican Party has created a monster no one can stop.  

Happy Earthday Everyone!

Gaylord Nelson on the right beside President Kennedy.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1942, Gaylord Nelson was drafted into the U.S. Army.  After World War II ended, he returned to his native state and to politics, the profession he was bred to pursue.  His great-grandfather was a founding member of the Republican Party.  His father was a mayor.  When Gaylord was nine, his dad took him to hear Progressive Party firebrand Robert M. La Follette campaign from the back of a train. 

On their way home, the boy's father asked him if the experience had made him want to go into politics when he grew up.  

"Yes, he replied."  "But I'm afraid by the time I grow up Bob La Follette will have settled all the problems and there will be nothing for me to do."

After practicing law briefly in Madison, Nelson served in the state legislature and as governor before running for the U.S. Senate in 1962.  In Washington, he found that Senator La Follette had left plenty for him to do.  Nelson's passion was conservation, which he successfully urged President Kennedy to discuss on a coast-to-coast tour.  Nelson's crusade was nearly drowned out by the political furor surrounding the Vietnam War, which Nelson came to oppose.  But a tactic of the peace activists -- campus "teach-ins" -- inspired him.  Why not adopt that method for environmental issues?  Speaking to Seattle conservationist in 1969, Nelson called for a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment the following Spring. He invited everyone to participate. 

"The response was electric,"  he recalled in 2005.  "Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country.  The American people finally had a forum to express concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air--and they did so with spectacular exuberance."

The upshot was Earth Day, celebrated for the first time on this date, and every ensuring April.  Many conservationists consider April 22, 1970, the day that signifies the birth of the modern environmental movement. 

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level," Gaylord Nelson wrote.  "We had neither the time nor the resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.  That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day.  It organized itself." 
(Excerpted from "On This Date" by Carl M. Cannon.)


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Earth Day has been celebrated on this date since the early 70's.  It is a day dedicated to Gaia -- the planet, not the internet TV station with Regina Meredith.  Earth Day is real, no matter what the Right Wing Lunatics want you to believe.   At last count, the Academies of Science from 80 countries plus many scientific organizations that study climate science, around 95% of active climate researchers actively publishing climate papers endorse the consensus position that Climate Change is Real.

Still the deniers are out there, as on this day in April of 2009, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota delivered this message from the House of Representatives:

"As a matter of fact, carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful!   But there isn't one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.  There isn't one study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas--it is a harmless gas.  Carbon dioxide is natural.  It is not harmful.  It is part of earth's life cycle."

Update:  Michele Bachmann is so evil, in 2012 she applied for a Swiss citizenship.   Yeah, another patriotic Republican Congressperson who's true interest in US politics is to confuse the truth for her own personal gain, and then take the money and run to a Climate Conscious Country.   Also worth noting, Bachmann runs a Christian Organization who was under investigation for stealing email addresses so she could mass-market parents with more Eco lies. And finally, Bachmann said in 2019:

"...we will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president (than Donald Trump) again in our lifetime...."

And again I have to ask you my dear Republican friends:  Is this really the government you want?   If so, why don't you and Michele suck the tailpipe of a Mercedes for just five-minutes and tell me carbon dioxide is safe?

Michele Bachmann: Carbon Dioxide denier.

Happy Earth Day Everyone!   Their days are numbered.   Truth is coming and they don't like it.   We are turning on the light on their lies and they are running like roaches.

You Talking To Me!

Make America Great Again: Stop Lying.

So here we are in the mad, mad, world of Donald Trump.  He says one thing and does another.  As Shakespeare would say: The lord tells lies, and all too easily.  

Lie: Februray 7th, "the coronavirus would weaken "when we get into April...."

Fact:  It didn't. 

Lie: February 27th, "It's going to disappear.  One day it's like a miracle -- it will disappear."

Fact:  It didn't. 

Lie: Multiple times, "If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about for Covid19 deaths."

Fact:  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. But the number of people who died by suicide in 2017, for example, was roughly 47,000, nowhere near the COVID-19 estimates.

Lie: "The Obama White House’s response to the H1N1 pandemic was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now.”

Fact:  Barack Obama declared a public-health emergency two weeks after the first U.S. cases of H1N1 were reported, in California. (Trump declared a national emergency more than seven weeks after the first domestic COVID-19 case was reported, in Washington State.) 

Lie:  "We inherited a broken, bad, and obsolete test for the coronavirus."

Fact:  The novel coronavirus did not exist in humans during the Obama administration. Public-health experts agree that, because of that fact, the CDC could not have produced a test, and thus a new test had to be developed this year.

Lie:  “I’ve always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
 

Fact:  Trump has repeatedly downplayed the significance of COVID-19 as outbreaks began stateside. From calling criticism of his handling of the virus a “hoax,” to comparing the coronavirus to a common flu, to worrying about letting sick Americans off cruise ships because they would increase the number of confirmed cases, Trump has used his public statements to send mixed messages and sow doubt about the outbreak’s seriousness.

For more lies... just listen to the guy anywhere, any day, anytime.  He doth lie too much. 

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Enoch Powell preaching Trump Hate back in 1968.

 

When I was in a rock band in the 80's we wrote a song that went something like: There's nothing new under the sun, it's all been done, it's all been done....

And on this day in 1968, British right-wing leader Enoch Powell made his "Rivers of Blood" speech.  The hate speech was a Trump like speech blaming everything wrong on immigrants.  Powell was a conservative and the Trump-style speech was condemned by his own conservative party which quickly ended his political career.  

 

Ah, yes, the good old days when being a radical nut ended a political career, instead of propelled a political career.  

 

 

 ~~ Radical Sam.