This post can be seen at breakablenews.substack.com.
Human nature
The First American coup d’etat Attempt
I’m afraid, yes, it’s coming. America has never had a coup attempt. We’ve always had peaceful transfers of power after an election. The people’s vote was sacrosanct. Some who were voted out of power didn’t like it, but they accepted it. Now there is Trump, a kind of caustic rust who is continually wearing away our Democracy in the torrent of his lies. But Trump is a madman. That is obvious to many of us. To him, it’s all about himself. He cares little for anyone else. He would throw his wife under the bus if she uttered one word he deemed oppositional to him.
But the real impetus of a coup lies with the senators and representatives who want to reverse a legal, true, fair, and accurate election–one of the most observed and accurate in American history. They and possibly Pence think they can defy the Constitution and reverse the vote in battleground states that went for Trump. They think they have the power to do that despite the fact that just about all the courts, including the Supreme Court, ruled against Republican challenges to election results. So they are bypassing the judicial branch of our government to get their way. And they are opposing our Constitution that is the glue that holds the three branches of our government together. That is [Read more…] about The First American coup d’etat Attempt
Beware the Ides of January 6th
In what should be a ceremony that the press always ignores, the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6th is morphing into another Trumpian spectacle of Sturm und Drang. It seems some Republican senators, with the support of Trump, will mount a challenge to the Electoral College vote, trying to reverse its outcome in several battleground states that went for Biden, giving him the victory. Trump has exhausted all legal paths to change the outcome. All failures. He still denies Biden won. He is, indeed, in denial, as we mental health counselors say. Big time. Why won’t Trump concede his loss?
Is it that he is afraid that once he is out of power, his wrongdoings will catch up to him and he will wind up in prison? Perhaps. You and I would assume that, but Trump has evaded so many attempts to cripple him through the courts that I think he thinks he is invincible. Just hire enough lawyers who issue enough legal roadblocks and his accusers get tired of the time and money it costs to continue accusing. Even tax evasion, that misstep that finally caught Al Capone, won’t catch him, he surmises. Never has and never will.
So now, he has one more ploy. Actually a series of ploys. First, he has his traitor Representatives and Senators vote to deny certifying the Electoral College tally in certain states. When that fails he has Pence fail to certify the final tally (Pence has no constitutional authority whatsoever to do so). When that fails he instigates his radical, armed supporters, such as various white supremacist groups who he has dogwhistled to “Stand by,” to take to the streets and perform enough acts of violence and chaos to allow him to declare martial law (He has already called for such violent rallies on the 6th!). Police, many of whom are either members or sympathizers of these White Supremacist groups do nothing to restrain the violence, effectively being complicit in a violent takeover of the government. His cult followers also take to the streets screaming and creating havoc. The final ploy in this string of ploys? Trump remains in power, declaring himself President for at least another four years.
Impossible? Improbable, perhaps, but not impossible. Trump is desperate enough to try this. He has nothing really to lose since he’s already lost the prize he thought he had all along: remaining in power. His ego cannot and will not tolerate a loss. You must not be a loser, his father drummed into his skull. Of course all of the above must succeed for the final Trumpian outcome to come true. If it doesn’t work, Trump will leave office but declare himself the victim of a fraudulent election, making himself a martyr, still beloved by his cult followers. This might encourage him to run again in 2024 to continue his onslaught against our government and way of life.
Is there anything you and I can do to stop this insanity? I’m doing what I can do by writing this post. We are past the point of “calling our representatives.” We are past the point of voting or sending in our donations. Our democracy has voted Trump down hard, but our democracy still teeters on the brink of [Read more…] about Beware the Ides of January 6th
2020 canceled! Breakable News Breaks it First…
We tracked down President Trump in a bathroom at his Mar a Lago resort in Florida, after he returned from yet another critical golf outing where some 17 Secret Service golf carts dutifully followed him. Trump started our interview, with our Mar a Lago correspondent Izzy “Goodtimes” Smyth, by first lamenting that the fake news fashion mags declined to put his wife, a former model, on the cover of any of their “Democrat-run rags.” Our reporter, who has never won any awards, took it from there.
IS: So, Mr. President, how’s it going? (Ed. note: How about that start? Izzy is one our best!)
DJT: Great. Great. Never better. Sydney Powell, one of my most trusted advisors, gave me the best advice ever. She told me I have the power to cancel 2020, which is what I intend to do after I get another round in tomorrow, which is Saturday. I never miss golf on Saturdays.
IS: Whoa. You’re telling me you’re going to cancel the entire year as if it never happened. How in the world will you do that?
DJT: No problem. Rudy, Sydney, Pompeo, and my new AJ tell me to just keep saying it’s true over and over and, like magic, people will eventually believe it. It’s like herd immunity, except I call it herd lunacy. See, it’s genius. It’s really not much different than what I’ve done my whole life. And look where it’s gotten me!
IS: I see. So, like, none of 2020 ever happened, kind of, I mean, like…
DJT: Exactly, Izzy. You got it. Put it down in your paper just like that. My enemies will say, conspiracy theory. Well I’ll give them a conspiracy all right: one that says Covid, the election, the blown economy, unemployment, 325K dead, my lousy rounds of golf, masks, the fly on Pence’s head, social distancing, empty sports stadiums, even the slights to my hot wife never happened. I already got 74 million voters who will swallow that hook, line, and stinker.
IS: That’s sinker, Sir.
DJT: Listen, Izzard. Never correct me. Understand? Never correct the President of the United State.
IS: That’s States, Sir.
DJT: OK, that’s it. Outta here. I got lunch to get to, and I never miss lunch. I think it’s lobster and steak today, same as yesterday.
IS: But if the year is canceled, has our meeting ever really happened, Sir?
DJT: Ah… well. Check that with Rudy and Sydney and Sydney’s ace consultant Tore. They’re handling all the details. Don’t confuse me, Izzy. I like to stay focused, you know. They’ve prepared a revised calendar for me to sign as an Executive Order, and I’ve arranged for the Ball at Times Square to say 2020 when it drops. Like I said, genius. Don’t you agree?
IS: Well…I was just thinking…there might some problems…around… that approach… to the problems… the country…is feeling right now.
DJT: Don’t think, IM. Just do as I say. This’ll work. Just listen to those people outside cheering for me. Stop the Steal. Love it. Gotta run. Don’t worry. It’ll be like a miracle. Just like Groundhog Day. A do-over. Ha Ha. Genius.
Oh, Izzy, flush that toilet for me, would you. I’m very cautious about germs, you know.
So we’ll see you tomorrow, gentle readers. Or today, or yesterday, or whenever. When we figure it out, we’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, keep those donations pouring in, but just please leave off the date until we get this rather shocking new paradigm sorted out.
A Trump Coup Attempt?
Donald Trump seems to have a form of coup on his mind. A coup, though, often involves a military takeover. In the post Cold War world, such coups have occurred in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America. According to Wikipedia, about half have been successful and half unsuccessful. None have occurred in Europe or North America. The U.S. has never experienced a coup.
Yet a coup is mostly plotted by a group that is out of power against at the group that is in power. Trump’s coup would be a first: a coup of a person currently in power against a person duly elected but not yet in power. Trump has tried every legal means even, up to the Supreme Court, to reverse the outcome of the election, without success. His next scheme is to convince Mike Pence to vote against confirmation of the Electoral College tally in Congress and reverse the outcome of the election. But Pence and his advisers have advised Trump that this is [Read more…] about A Trump Coup Attempt?
I awake this morning with a deep anger…
…toward Donald Trump and these inhumane and immoral pardons he feels justified to impart like a fake monarch surveying his realm. His pardon of four thugs from Blackwater who murdered 14 completely innocent Iraqis, including men, women and children, during the invasion was particularly deplorable. One was in jail for first degree murder and life, the other three were serving 30 year sentences. Trump released them with one swirl of his sloppy signature, slapping the face of an entire nation who still mourns.
Beyond anger, I feel a deep embarrassment at the actions of this immoral so-called human being, Donald Trump. I am embarrassed to be connected with him as an American, embarrassed that I’ve lived here under his rule during these last four years, embarrassed to be connected, even remotely, with those that voted for him and those in Congress who enabled his reign of his attempt to dismantle our democracy. I am embarrassed that some 74 million people voted for this charlatan. I am embarrassed that a significant number of those voters still think he was not legally elected. I am embarrassed that though Trump lost, Republicans gained seats in the House, and held their majority, so far, in the Senate.
A better word still, is distraught. I am distraught that over 315,000 people have died due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and there are still a significant number of Republicans who [Read more…] about I awake this morning with a deep anger…
Animal Rights: Let Lab Animals Free
Let Lab Animals Free
by
Stephen Altschuler
A song written in the 1980s and, in many ways, still applicable today
In the primate laboratories
I can tell you many stories
of thousands of baby chimpanzees
who are maimed and mutilated, tortured and castrated
and taken from their mother’s arms.
Chorus
They’ve got no voices, they’ve got no names
They make no charges, they lay no blame,
yet their hearts feel suffering just the same.
Let lab animals free, if not you and me, who else will set lab
animals free.
In the name of research and science
with tax money and government compliance
with an arrogant, heartless defiance,
Monkeys are maimed and mutilated, tortured and castrated
and taken from their mother’s arms.
Primate studies get repeated,
no anesthesia, surgically mis-treated.
Is this blood bath really needed?
As they’re maimed and mutilated, tortured and castrated
and taken from their mother’s arms.
Wild monkeys bound with steel and leather,
trapped in the tropics, shipped to northern weather,
screams of anguish, like slaves together.
for they’re maimed and mutilated, tortured and castrated
and taken from their mother’s arms.
From today’s Guardian:
In recent years the US government has started to phase out the use of primates in research, with the National Institutes of Health making a landmark decision in 2015 to retire all chimpanzees used in biomedical studies. Critics of the practice argue it is immoral and cruel to subject highly intelligent, social creatures so similar to humans to such conditions.
However, other labs continue to use monkeys in large numbers – a record 74,000 were used in experiments in 2017 – with scientists claiming they are far better than other animals, such as mice, for studying diseases that also afflict humans.
Even when monkeys are retired from research purposes, the task of rehoming them in appropriate sanctuaries still proves haphazard.
“What tragic afterthoughts these lives were,” said Mike Ryan, spokesman for Rise for Animals, the group that obtained the freedom of information documents on the Ames primate deaths. “Nasa has many strengths, but when it comes to animal welfare practices, they’re obsolete.”
Hiking: I hate to hike…I love to…
I hate to hike. I mean, I love to hike, but after
the love of hiking gets me to the trail, I hate to hike.
I mean, I love to hike, but when heart is pounding,
ascending a hill, and legs are heading for hell, and
mind is fixed only on the hill’s top and its subsequent
leveling off and descent, I hate to hike. I really love
to hike when I’ve been sitting inside for a lifetime of
Monday mornings and the wind has blown away the smog and
I can see the mountains across the bay as clean as
glacial ice.
Such conditions herald a hike, and visions of the
way it will be dance in my head like the Sirens that
tempted Ulysses. The legs begin to sense it first and
then get up, often for the most ridiculous reasons.
Then the arms move, almost uncontrollably, and the head
turns to the outside as a compass needle turns north.
Like an addict, I am hooked, not on the hike itself but
the thought of it. And like the actions of the addict,
the thought and the event are inseparable.
So I go. It is not even a conscious decision. I do
not say Should I or Shouldn’t I. The lure of the hike
is like a beautiful woman beckoning me. I do not
hesitate but rush headlong into her wanting arms. She
envelops me with kisses and hugs as we make love till
dawn, and we lie there exhausted, not even knowing each
other’s name. And as it would be with such a woman, I
consider nothing of the consequences, of the potential
pain of succumbing totally to my sensory desires.
I go: to the hills, the mountains, the beach, the
steep, Bay Area public pathways and stairways©©it
doesn’t really matter. The itch and the urge must be
satisfied. How good it feels to scratch, but how
irritated if I scratch too hard!
Ultimately though, I love to hike and if I could
hike always on an ultimate plane of existance, I would
be in eternal bliss. But this body aches so at times,
and this mind hates the aching. Yet what can I do?
These legs will not stop. These eyes will not close.
This walker’s soul will not rest, although, at
times–upon a time, for a time, in time, because of
time, despite, in nirvana, there being no time–this
body hates to hike and would be done with it if this
mind and spirit didn’t love it so.