Claims And Issues

OPINION BILLIONAIRES

"Opinion billionaires."  Filthy rich people who send automobiles into outer space and oligarchs that give presents to judges who do not report them as the gifts they are.  I like that phrase, "opinion billionaires."  It describes them.

These are people who are so out of touch with the way we live that they might as well come from a different country.  Effectively, they do come from a different country.  Why in the world should we pay attention to them when they tell us what we should think, how we should live, or what we should vote for?  They know so little about us.

Rebecca Solnit put it this way recently:  "Being a billionaire tends to isolate you from the rest of humanity, and too often places you in an echo chamber of your own making; it's arguably a disqualification for participating in the affairs of ordinary people."

I hadn't quite thought of these people in those terms.  They know so little about us and everything about themselves.  There may not be much to "argue" about this as a disqualification for participating in the affairs of ordinary people.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.   

THE "TELL." Updated to November, 2023.

November 7, 2023:  I have not republished an article previously posted here, but this is a good time to start.  This article was originally published on November 12, 2022.  Many people seem to be in a tizzy about a poll published at this time, in November 2023, about the 2024 elections a year from now.  The polls were conducted by Siena College, I believe, and published by The New York Times.  Ridiculous.  Read on.  This has happened before, in fact, it happened before the last election as well.  Guess what?  People of good will won that election too.  So, as I have already said, read on.  Thank you.

Editing (Image by LexisNexis)

 

A "tell" in poker is information that a player at the table gives away about the hand they hold.  A tell can be a twitch of the eye, a tug on the ear, or anything else that the poker player does not realize they are doing when they telegraph what kind of hand they have.

Up until a few months ago, the story repeated in the media was that the Midterm Elections of 2022 would bring a "Blue Wave."  Then the stories changed, and they became stories that a "Red Wave" was coming instead.  These stories stayed up in the media until the Election, when of course there was no red wave after all.

Earlier this week, a few days after the Election, a  journalist revealed on a podcast that the story changed because Republican mega-donors commissioned new polls that would say that a red wave was on the way.  Whether or not journalists knew that at the time, they printed the multi-millionaires' poll results.  That says a lot about 21st Century Journalism right there:  Journalists did not fully investigate before they published.

Even if some journalists did not know the story behind the oligarchs' polls, all journalists knew that the Republicans did not reveal (even anonymously) their private polling data.  Parenthetically, Republicans have apparently shown journalists their private polling date in many past elections, at least when the data was favorable to Republicans.  Journalists knew that months ago.

Months ago, Republicans knew pretty much that they would not do well in the Midterms this year.  Otherwise they would have shared their private polling data.  You can bet that if the data was good for them, they would have published it early and often.

Not sharing private poll results is a tell. 

Journalists did not tell us that the Republicans this year did not share their private polling data.  Journalists just printed stories based on the polls commissioned to predict a "Red Wave."  They wrote, in essence, "Be afraid, be very afraid," right up until Election Day earlier this week.  Now they are writing a different story, that there certainly is not a red wave.

The secretly held private polling results was a major big tell.  The journalists knew.  And they did not tell us.

Other than they, the journalists, who said it is a good idea to pay attention to them?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2022 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BASEBALL, MAKING A BUCK, AND BRAINS.

Baseball’s long-ago decision to make a couple of levels of short series that teams would have to negotiate like a minefield, showed itself this year.

The justification for departing from one pennant winner with the most victories in each league was money.  The Lords of Baseball, the Owners, wanted more money.  They thought without evidence at the time that more fans buying more tickets in more series would make them more money.  In the short run, perhaps it has.

In the long run, the fans that follow teams beginning in April know that in October their teams’ victories won’t matter.  What will matter is whether their team “qualifies” for the first of many short series on the way to the World Series.  Even if a team wins more than 100 games, as the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles both did this season, their records won’t matter if they don’t make it past all of the multiple short series.

So the lesson is that winning games between April and October does not matter so long as you win 3 out of 5 games, or 4 out of 7 games, to really punch your ticket to the World Series.  The Lords may be making money on this in the short run, and maybe not, but if those Owners pay attention they will see and hear and smell the loss of interest in the long run.

Short-term profits and long-term loss.  Isn’t that so 2023?

CIAO!  ARRIVEDERCI!

IS ANYBODY GOING TO WATCH THIS WORLD SERIES?

Fans followed two teams that went the distance in the 2023 baseball season:  the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Baltimore Orioles.  Both teams won over 100 games in a season that lasted over 6 months and a 162-game schedule.

The Orioles added something to their storyline this year.  Unlike the Dodgers, the Orioles have not been used to winning over the long haul.

Now we are in the short haul part of the baseball year.  After winning “the best of 5” and then “the best of 7,” the two remaining teams are proven losers over the long term but proven winners over the short term because they are still around.  For their part, the Orioles and the Dodgers have gone home.

So is anyone going to stay around and watch this World Series?  It’s a short series, you know.  Anything can happen, and losers can even be champs in a short series, you know.  But I wonder:  Are the same people that followed baseball over the long haul going to stick with this shortened version where the teams and the records are, well, smaller?

SEE ‘YA NEXT YEAR!  Maybe.

WHY DOESN’T JOE BIDEN GET MORE SUPPORT IN THE POLLS?

Members of the Taliban at the Kabul Airport after the Americans left.  (Photo by Reuters via The Jerusalem Post)

In a word:  Afghanistan.

MOVING ON BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE ….

U.S. SENATE RULES ARE UNDEMOCRATIC. AND THEY ARE UNSAFE.

The rules of the United States Senate are anti-democratic.  And unsafe.

    One senator can stop military officers from being promoted, even to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Even when that one senator has never served in the military, like Tommy Tuberville.

    One senator can also endanger the national security by putting a block on the appointment of diplomats from the United States to any other country.  That senator -- Rand Paul -- was never a diplomat, any more than Tuberville was ever a soldier, sailor, marine, or airman but he too is allowed to endanger the security of the United States because of the rules of the United States Senate.

    If the current Majority Leader of the United States Senate does not have the votes to change this rule, he should at least denounce this rule and call a vote to make it public even if he loses.

    If the current Leader cannot even call a vote, he should step aside and let someone else do the work.  Senator Chuck Schumer, leave the job to someone else if you can't do it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE OCEANGATE SCANDAL.

Have you heard about the OceanGate scandal yet?

           No, not the story of the tourist submersible that the company owned, or the story of OceanGate's CEO who tragically died piloting $1 Million worth of tourist seats to ogle the graveyard of the Titanic, its crew, and its passengers who went down with it.

           And no, not the story of the wrongful death lawsuits that from all the news reports it seems are likely to be filed right away, if they haven't been filed already.

          I mean the scandal of the loan to the OceanGate company of some reportedly $450,000 of COVID relief money in the guise of a PPP loan,  and the additional scandal that the OceanGate loan of COVID funds intended to relieve the pandemic, was reportedly forgiven so that the company does not have to repay a cent of the COVID money.

          I think that this is ironic, given the reluctance of some to forgive student loan debts even as OceanGate's "loan" was being forgiven.

          It truly is a scandal.  Do you think differently?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

$250,000 MACK TRUCK PEOPLE, UNDER THE SEA.

(Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images)

Mack truck people in my lexicon are people who run out in front of a Mack truck, get run over, and if they survive yell, "Look at me!  I just got run over by a Mack truck."

          The four tourists in the tourist submersible to look at the wreck of the Titanic and the graveyards of all the people who were still on the ship when it sank, are each $250,000 Mack truck people.  They paid $250,000 apiece to take a ride and now they are in trouble and we are supposed to come to help them out of the trouble they paid their way into.  Again, don't get me wrong because I continue even now to pray, days after the news first broke, that they may return safely from their self-induced troubles under the sea off Newfoundland near the wreck and the graveyard that is left of the Titanic, which these tourists so richly wanted to see.

          But again also, we don't have to pay for their rescue.  Rescue them we will, or at least we will try.  Coast Guards and airplanes and ships of all kinds are rushing to the rescue, which is great.  So long as it is not at taxpayer expense.  The tourists caused their peril, the tourists should pay the bill for their rescue.  I continue to hope and to pray for their rescue.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

BANGING ON THE TITANIC?

The Titanic (AP photo)

There are reports of banging from the tourist submersible that was chartered to visit the grave of the Titanic and its crew two miles down into the sea near Newfoundland.

          Let's hope this is a good sign.  I for one am continuing to pray for the safe return of the four Quarter Million Dollar tourists and of the one pilot who was apparently the only one who did not pay for the privilege.  If he had had his hands on $250,000, I doubt that he would have spent it on a trip to the Titanic.

          For all concerned, as I suggested the other day, surely the $250,000 apiece (for a total of $1 Million in round numbers, apparently) could have been much better spent on the hungry, the poor, and the sick.  But then, none of them are two miles down below the surface of the sea off Newfoundland, so far as that goes.

          BTW:  I thought that the final resting place of the Titanic, the members of its crew who went down with the ship, and its passengers who were still on board when the ship sank, was off limits to sight-seers?  Isn't this a protected site?  After this experience, if not, why not?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

$250,000 TO OGLE THE TITANIC? FEED, HOUSE, CURE? PAY RESCUE?

Don't get me wrong.  I don't want anybody to drown or die.  I am praying for the safe return of the four tourists and one pilot in the lost submersible ogling the wreck of the Titanic.

          I do mean to say clearly that when I learned that the four tourists paid a Quarter of a Million Dollars apiece for the ride, I lost all sympathy for them.  I am still praying for them, and for their families.  But I personally think that $250,000 would be better spent feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and curing the sick, than spending it on myself for a ride to ogle the wreck of the Titanic.

          What's more, I read that various Coast Guards and maybe even Navies are rushing to the rescue of these unfortunate five.  The airwaves are dominated at this time by stories about their plight.  You and I should not pay the bills, whatever happens (and again, let's hope that what happens is a good ending to all this).  The four tourists can afford it if they can pay $250,000 apiece to visit the remains of a shipwreck two or more miles down under the waves.

          So, that's what I'm saying and I'm saying it clearly, so don't misunderstand and think that I want anything but the safe return of these self-centered tourists.  I just want them to make a better use of their own money.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CUT TO THE CHASE:  IF SHE STAYS ON THE CASE ....

It is very clear:

"The simplest way to put it is that if Cannon remains assigned to this case, Trump will not be convicted, no matter how damning the evidence."

Mark Joseph Stern,  JURISPRUDENCE / Judge Aileen Cannon Can Absolutely Sink the Federal Prosecution of Trump, SLATE Magazine (online June 9, 2023).

This blog article ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.  Please read the disclaimer.

WHO ARE YOU KIDDING? RANDOM? I DON'T THINK SO.

The Honorable Aileen Cannon is one of 15 active judges in the Southern District of Florida.  (She is number 15 on the list of 15, in terms of seniority.)  In addition, there are 11 judges on Senior Status in the Southern District of Florida.  That makes 26 judges available for duty in the Southern District of Florida.

          There are those who want you to believe that judges are assigned to cases randomly in the Southern District of Florida.

          What are the odds that 1/26 of the judges available should be assigned to the case of The Grievance Guy?  Yet there she is.

          And there he is.

          And here we are.

          Random?  I don't think so.  Do you think differently?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

LEAVE THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO OTHERS, BIDENISTAS.

 

President Biden.  (AP / Susan Walsh)

Now that he made his deal for the debt, President Joe Biden is still talking from time to time about looking in the future at the Fourteenth Amendment option to the debt.

          Leave the Fourteenth Amendment alone, Joe.  You didn't use it when you could have (and should have), so don't mess it up now.  You and your aides do not have the skills to deal with the Fourteenth Amendment. 

          Anything the Bidenistas say now about the Fourteenth Amendment and the debt will be negative.  They have to pooh-pooh the Fourteenth Amendment option now, because that is what they did so that they could make their deal instead.  Don't expect an unbiased, calm assessment now.

          So leave the Fourteenth Amendment to them that can understand it, Bidenistas; you have shown us either that you can't understand it, or, which pretty much amounts to the same thing, that you have to ignore it to make deals instead.  That's fine, what's done is done and all that, but go away now.  Thanks.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JOE WANTS RE-ELECTION SO BAD, HE CAN TASTE IT.

President Joe Biden is not good at talking.  I am not talking about stuttering; his life-long struggle to overcome stuttering is admirable.

 

          No, I am talking about the fact that he is no good at talking.  He is not an eloquent politician by anyone's reckoning, including his own.

His skills are in making deals.  In his own mind, Joe Biden is a negotiator.  Even though he gives away all his chips before he comes to the poker table, as he did when he gave away the Fourteenth Amendment instruction that the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned, and chose instead to negotiate about it.

          He chose to negotiate because, to say again, that's what he thinks he can do.  That's why he took a negotiation and not a stand.  Now he thinks he will be remembered as The Great Negotiator, because how he will be remembered a year from now is more important to him than the debt.

          Joe Biden wants to be re-elected so bad, he can taste it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

Ignore the Distractions, Follow the Money.

The debt ceiling bill that is making the rounds this week on Capitol Hill has distractions and profit in it.  A lot of people are going to be worse off and a few people are going to be better off for it.

          Forced labor requirements are euphemistically and usually called work requirements when officials and the media refer to this debt deal.  But they are forced labor requirements.  They're in the debt ceiling bill to provide cruelty appeal to a percentage of the votes in the U.S. House and in the U.S. Senate, but realistically, more so in the House.  The appeal of being cruel when they vote for this bill makes it attractive and so the bill is more likely to pass.

          The forced labor requirements will never apply to the people who vote for them.  Their soft little hands could not do the work.  People who apply for TANF (what's left of welfare) or SNAP (which used to be food stamps) are the people who face forced labor – but even then, not everyone.  There are exemptions for veterans or members of the military, or homeless people.  So the labor requirements will fall on the backs of mothers with four children who never served in the military, say, or on the backs of older people already bent with age.

          Ignore the distractions and follow the money.  There's money to be made here, and the billionaires know how.

          The debt deal removes about 25% of the funding which Congress just voted for the Internal Revenue Service to flag wealthy tax cheats.  Only the rich can afford to be big tax cheats.  The funding applies only to tagging rich cheats.  This is a threat to them.  It had to be cut, from where they sit.

          Leaders who made this deal make their money by pushing programs of the rich.  Or they have a much better chance of winning coveted re-election by pushing programs wanted by the rich.  Or both.  To some, the cruelty of forced labor requirements is an added attraction as well; again, the idea seems to be to maximize your percentages of success even when you cannot completely, 100%  guarantee your success.

          Progressives, for their part,  are more or less naturally inclined to support a deal reached by the president of their own party.  Here, they were also told that this deal cutting the IRS search for wealthy tax cheats is temporary.  The IRS can get the money back some day, they say.  Maybe there will be even more funding in the future, they say.  Unfortunately for what they say, the reality in Washington, D.C. is now and has always been that once the money is gone, it's gone.

          The bottom line?  It's in the title:  Ignore the Distractions, Follow the Money.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THE POWER OF ONE.

Or, in these cases, the tail wags the dog.  It's a distraction.

          It's intentional.

          The story from Miami-Dade County has it that one parent objected to Amanda Gorman's poem at Joe Biden's 2021 Inauguration so it was pulled from elementary or middle school students (it is not clear to me which).

          The media reporting has tended to focus on the continuing attacks on books and ideas, forcing their removal from schools and libraries.

          I have focused instead on the fact that one person can make such a difference.  (If you or I ever thought that by ourselves we did not make much of a difference, we need to think again.)  How is it that one person can move thousands?

          It's a designed distraction.  By that I mean that there is a huge story, for example, of the Walt Disney Corporation pulling out of what was billed as a $1 Billion investment in a new Lake Nona Town Center area in Orange County.  I am uncertain how many thousands of jobs were lost, but it's a lot, perhaps as many as 2,000 jobs.

          Or the story of the same corporation shutting down a hotel in the Walt Disney World Resort.

          These stories and many stories like them have not gotten as much play as they would have, embarrassing as they are to the current "Top Guv," were it not for the distracting story of book bans.  Or in the case of the one Miami-Dade person, poem bans.

          That's what I mean when I say that this is a designed distraction.  It's a distraction by design.  If you run for president, after all, you can't have all this talk about losing billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NEGOTIATION 101: KEEP YOUR OPTIONS ON THE TABLE.

Even if you yourself know that you are probably not going to use them, keep your options alive.  If you take them away yourself, you have lost them just as surely as if your adversary took them away.

          The Biden Administration had an option to have a coin available to pay off the debt, a massive, magic coin.  Bitcoin I believe it is called.  The Biden negotiators took this option off the table.  Treasury Secretary Yellen, for example, called it "a gimmick."

          The Biden negotiators still have the option of following the Fourteenth Amendment but, thanks to the Biden people themselves, this option is on life support.  Barely alive as an option now, following the Fourteenth Amendment would be relatively simple stuff.  The Fourteenth Amendment expressly provides that the full faith and credit of the United States shall not be questioned.  That's the Fourteenth Amendment in the Constitution.

          Last I looked at Constitutions and statutes, the U.S. Constitution takes precedence over any conflicting statute.  That includes the debt limit statute which is currently being used to take the Biden Administration – and the United States itself – hostage if the demands of the maggots are not met.  So the Constitution should win over the statute, right?

          Well, Biden aides have let it be known that they do not think much of this option.  It would inevitably mean going to Court.  That could take a long time.  And it would ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, and who has any faith in them or at least in about 6 of them, anyway?  (Sounds like Merrick Garland, doesn't it?)

          Lawyers look at arguments.  Lawyers ask if the argument is good or bad.  I know.  I am one of them.

          I think the Fourteenth Amendment is a pretty good argument.  Actually, it's a very good argument.  This is one argument that I would have been happy to make in Court myself, except that I am not the Attorney General or the Solicitor General or even one of Joe Biden's aides.  Still, surely one or more among them can make a good argument, especially one that is as good as this one.  One that is handed to you.

          Well, it could take a long time.  So what?  People will receive Social Security checks and paychecks in the meantime, and all the other debts of the nation will be paid in the meantime as well.  The Civil War took 4 years.  Some people thought that was a long time.

          But the toil, the strife, the sacrifices, were all worth it in the end.  Certainly that was true for the vast, vast majority of the nation.

          So don't be afraid or very afraid.  Have faith and be hopeful, be very hopeful.  And keep all your remaining options alive, for gosh sake.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

NEGOTIATION SKILLS.

The best negotiation position to be in is not to have to negotiate at all.  If you have the power to prevent negotiation about what you want out of life, you have all the negotiating skill you will ever want.

          The Biden Administration and the Democratic Party had the power to get rid of the debt default limit.  If they had gotten rid of it, they would never have to negotiate over the debt because there would be no danger of default.  They had the power to do this by what is called reconciliation, which means passing a measure related to the budget with a simple majority in the U.S. Senate.  They had the votes at the time.  They had the power, but they did not use it for that.  If memory serves, whatever they used it on did not work, either.

          Now we are where we are.  More thoughts to come.  To be continued ....

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

'FOR EVIL TO WIN, GOOD MUST KEEP QUIET.'

Some people representing some States sued to stop the federal government from allowing corporations to consider economic, social, and governance (ESG) issues in all States.  Honest.  Take a look at what they themselves wrote if you can't believe it:  Download State of Utah v. Walsh Complaint Doc.No. 1 filed 01.26.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2.23.cv.00016)).

          They filed their lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas in federal Court.  There is only one federal judge there, so they filed there.  Not surprisingly, they got the judge of their choice.  Not even drug dealers in major cities can do that.

          Speaking of drugs, this is the same Amarillo judge who 'ruled' for the entire country that the Food and Drug Administration did not have the power to regulate drugs – back in the day, over 20 years ago.  Nothing is too far away to be overturned with this crew, it seems.  Not in time, and not in the rest of the United States; nothing is too far away for them to reach.

          Not having stopped the federal government yet, the litigious people are asking their Amarillo judge to forbid the federal government permanently from ever allowing corporations to consider environmental, social, and governance issues of concern to their shareholders.   Honest.  OK, take a look at what they wrote for yourself: Download State of Utah v. Su Motion for Summary Judgment Doc. No. 92 filed 05.16.23 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2 .23.cv.00016).

          In Florida, another branch of this crew is 'investigating' a teacher who showed her class a Disney movie.   Honest.

          Parenthetically, the teacher resigned even before she showed the movie.  The 'investigation' by the Florida department of education began anyway when one member of the local school board, who had a child at the school where the Disney movie was shown, started the investigation.  One.   Honest.

          It has not been reported whether or not the one complainer has stock in a Disney competitor.  It does not appear that she has been asked as yet.

          Meanwhile, in Montana, Governor Headslapper signed a bill passed by the learned Montana legislators that bans Montanans from looking at Tik Tok on their cellphones or on computers at home or in the office.  (The governor once slapped a reporter who asked him a question he did not want to answer, so he slapped him instead.)  Honest.

          And so it goes.

          A wise person once said that all it takes for evil to win is for good people to remain silent.  I do not want to be silent.  Do you?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CNN IS A TURN OFF↓

At least one report has it that after CNN aired "The Maggot Hall" last week, its ratings tanked below even Newsmax.

Keep on going!  

 

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

CNN: NOW OFFERING "THE MAGGOTS" BY THE GRIEVANCE BOY.

Remember watching "The Muppets" by Jim Henson?

    CNN's choice to replace that show is its new offering, "The Maggots" by the Grievance Boy.

    Early returns show "The Maggots" is doing well in what used to be called Kaliningrad.  That is a small city on the Baltic Sea where there is nothing else to do.  Although it is landlocked by surrounding democracies, it is ruled by the Russians.

    Back here in America, it's not going so well.   So many people are now literally turned off CNN.  Won't you join us?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

IT'S NOT JAMES EARL JONES'S CNN ANY MORE.

Free air time for The Grievance Boy, the one the jury found is a Sex Harasser?  Why?

    The next question is can't he afford it?  (Maybe not?  Lots of people ask whether he has ever been anywhere near as rich as he claims.)

    Bigger Questions come after that:  What has he done to deserve it?  Start a violent insurrection, attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, ignore the U.S. Constitution?  And so much more of like kind and nature that it makes your head spin.

    So we come back to the biggest question of all for CNN:  Why?

    It's not James Earl Jones's CNN any more.  Nor is it mine.  I'm one of the many viewers who are boycotting CNN starting today.  We will end the boycott when CNN returns to America, if it ever does.

    Until then, alternative networks like MSNBC or PBS should make a home for people like Anderson Cooper and Jim Acosta.  Anderson Cooper in particular would make a good host for The Rachel Maddow hour from Tuesday through Friday when Rachel is not in front of the MSNBC camera.  That way, we can still watch Anderson Cooper.  But not until then.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

SAY THEIR NAMES. TELL THEIR AGES.

This continues an article posted here earlier on Tuesday, May 9, 2023.

    The last names of the latest mass murderer's murdered victims are Cho, Mendoza, Thatikonda, and Cumana-Rivas.  The murdered victims' reported ages are 32, 26, and 3 years old.  The gunman gunned down women among the men.

    Another victim, one who was wounded but not killed, is 6 years old.

    Still not enough evidence for you to conclude that this man's motive for mass murder was White supremacy?  To conclude that he chose his targets from racism, anti-Semitism, women-hating, and fear of young people?  Reports have it that he intentionally staked out this shopping mall for days.  It is well-known for the diversity of the people who went there.

    Until a White supremacist mass murderer met them there.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

WHAT'S THE MOTIVE?

Why don't the "authorities" tell us the motive?  We just had another mass murder and they won't tell us why?

          Investigative reporting including from outside the United States has disclosed social media posts of the latest killer.  He posted on at least two networks, one of which is in Russia.

          The murderer also wore Nazi regalia and tattoos.  His rants are typical of White supremacists.

          Regardless of the motivation for the "authorities" trying so very hard not to tell us anything about his motive, the killer's motive is clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear:  Racism, anti-Semitism, women-hating, and rage against young people.  The fact that the murderer himself was Hispanic simply shows that killing knows no bounds and that White supremacy is not out of bounds for killers like the dead murderer in Texas.  Even some Jews became concentration camp guards to appease the Nazi SS (not very successfully, it should be noted; see the writings of Viktor Frankel and Eli Wiesel and others).

          Need more evidence for this man's motives to murder?  Look at his victims.  To be continued ….

Please read the disclaimer.  ©Dennis J. Wall 2023.  All rights reserved.

"THE DIPLOMAT" ON NETFLIX.

The Diplomat is a new and captivating show on Netflix.  The credits show that it was conceived by Deborah Cahn and it featured a woman who succeeded as a U.S. Ambassador (to the Court of St. James, no less, in the United Kingdom) by being successful at governing if not always so successful at displaying established gestures of diplomacy.

    It stars Keri Russell as Ambassador Katherine Wyler, and Russell too does a good job of bringing this refreshing character to life, matching the writing and the direction in the first episodes.

    Until the fourth episode, anyway.  Then she just became one of the boys.

    Not unique, not so different any longer.  She had sex just like the men do; she apparently could not restrain herself, this formerly one-of-a-kind character tiring herself out with all that truth.  It was fitting – and symbolic -- that the sex scenes came at the end of the episode.

    The fourth episode was the first appearance of Amanda Johnson-Zetterstroem in the credits.  She showed up as the scriptwriter for that episode.  I did not notice it in the credits, but imdb.com shows her as the producer of The Diplomat.

    Being a producer means bringing money to the production, either your own money or, more often, other people's.  It looks like she threw her money weight around to include what she apparently thinks of as an obligatory sex scene.  Just like the men.

    Whether that's what happened or not, it's a revoltingly sexist view to portray a successful woman as never being successful just because of the value of her brains or the merits of her personality.  Those are never enough, unfortunately, because in this unrealistic view, she must display intercourse to be entertaining.  Or it won't sell and they won't make enough money, or so it goes.

    The Writers' Strike which began the other day may have a positive effect here, who knows; at least for the short term we may not have more of this writing anytime soon.  I understand that The Diplomat has been renewed for another season, but I doubt it's because of the intercourse portrayed at the end of the fourth episode.  More like in spite of it.  We need more of The Diplomat the way it was written in the opening episodes, not less.

    I'll try the fifth episode, but if it's more of the same, it was fun to cheer for The Diplomat while its original spark was still burning.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

THOM SAYS: "NOT MY FEET, AND NOT MY HANDS ALSO."

A U.S. senator from North Carolina says that servers in restaurants do not have to wash their hands after they use the restroom and then serve you food.  How exactly does he come by this insight?

           Perhaps Thom Tillis, the senator in question, does not hold his unit when he does Number One.  It's possible; some men stand in front of the urinal (or toilet) and let go without holding on to anything.  Sometimes it gets messy, but they do not wash their hands.

          On the Thursday before Christ was crucified, He washed His apostles' feet until He came to Peter, who was told that he could not enter heaven otherwise and replied, "Lord, then not my feet only, but my hands also."

          Thom Tillis thinks he  knows better, I guess.  Just don't shake his hand if you can avoid it.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

DOMINION AND ITS LAWYERS PLAYED ME. THEY GOT THEIR MONEY.

If you are feeling a bit like you were fooled before the Dominion-Fox settlement bargain, join the club.  I was too.

Dominion tried its case in the newspapers (and on cable TV and on the internet) before Fox paid Dominion to stop trying its case.  Dominion's public position was that Fox damaged Dominion's reputation.

Now we know that all Dominion was looking for, really, was money.  Behind the scenes of its public face, Dominion must have wanted Fox's money desperately.  It took less than half of what it had been demanding from Fox.

Civil cases settle for money all the time.  But they don't settle for less than half of the money all the time.

 And more importantly, they don't usually settle without an apology when the party claiming to be the victim, in this case Dominion, claims that its reputation was irretrievably damaged by the other party, Fox in this case.

The value that Dominion really put on its reputation was nil, nada, nothing.  Dominion did not even get an apology from Fox.  That's how important Dominion actually thought its reputation was, in reality.  Dominion's reputation was worth nothing to Dominion.  Yet publicly, Dominion built a following by convincing the public that Dominion was the victim of such horrible deeds that its reputation might never recover.

Looks like all it took for Dominion was less than half of the money it demanded from Fox in the first place.

And Dominion didn't even get an apology.

So I'm not going to feel bad about believing Dominion's hype.  Dominion intended for me and for you to believe it.  Dominion spent a lot of air time and newspaper space crafting that phony narrative so that we would fall for it.  Masters of deception, with loads of help.  Dominion was adamant in public about the damage to its reputation.

Until, in private,  it wasn't. 

So don't let them make you feel bad now.  I have to admit that I felt bad myself, for about a day.  But not now.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

JIM JORDAN WRESTLES OHIO CRIME, FLEES TO SAFETY IN NYC.

Jim Jordan (R-OH) fled the high crime rate of Ohio for the safety of New York City's much lower crime rate.

Remember that every time you see or hear this man.

Especially whenever you see or hear him delivering speeches about crime.

Or about anything else, for that matter.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

KEVIN McCARTHY ON WALL STREET.

Kevin McCarthy has reportedly travelled to Wall Street to say that even though rejecting the "deadbeat ceiling" and defaulting on debts will hurt the bottom line, it is actually a good thing.

"Who are you here to see, George Santos?"—New York City.  "Never heard of him."—Anonymous.

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.

MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THOSE NATIONAL SECURITY LEAKS ….

The Shadow.  (Art by John Cassaday / Wikipedia)

It has been several days now, and although I have been keeping an ear out, I have not heard a word from the 21-year-old Massachusetts National Guard Airman who supposedly leaked national secrets single-handedly.

Yesterday, we received reporting that another player in the national security secrets leak, this time a former U.S. Navy CPO which the corporate media insists on calling a "veteran," spread the secrets that the airman leaked to the farthest stretches of the globe.  She also reportedly has connections with Putin and the KGB (which now calls itself FSB, but like many things, still smells the same).

Why is this airman kept so quiet?  Why was he alone blamed for the leaks, at least until the Navy CPO came along?

When will we hear from this airman and when will we hear from this "veteran"?

Ask yourself this too:  Why are these two leakers connected to the U.S. military?

And isn't it just too coincidental by half that the leaked secrets were falsified before they were spread to the world to make Russia look good and to make Ukraine look bad?  Perhaps Putin and the KGB are still at work.

Perhaps?

Please read the disclaimer.  ©2023 Dennis J. Wall.  All rights reserved.