was it a year?

There has been another year, and two deaths are still with me.

My mother passed away June 14, 2019, and my Lynn of 32 years passed away July 13, 2019. The grief is ongoing.
Even before those two deaths were others: an aunt and an uncle, one per year, almost exactly a year apart.
The aunt was in 2017, the uncle in 2018. 
I guess, as you get older and see the succession of deaths, you start to see patterns of occurrence and coincidence of things and dates.
How many passed in July, how many in June, in August, and so forth.
My dad's father passed February 28-March 2, 1976 
My mom's mother passed July 4, 1985
My mom's father passed March 10, 1988
My brother Tim passed June 1995
Lynn's father, Dr. Maurice Friedman in March, 1996
My grandmother, dad's mother passed July, 1998
My dad passed September 2, 1998

In 2003, my uncle (by marriage)f Sam, my aunt Carol's husband, passed
In 2010 were several deaths:
Suzy, my oldest sister, in February
My aunt Carol, my dad's sister, in March
My aunt Gwen, mother of my cousins Martha and Linda, and wife of my uncle Buck, in June
My uncle Henchie, my uncle Buck's older brother, in August. 

My next door neighbor, Elizabeth (I won't give further details) died Dec. 28, 2010.  
In March 2012, Lynn's mother, Sylvia Friedman died
2013 

2014 

June 15, 2015 an old friend, Frank Young passed, although I didn't know for some weeks. 
  





 

Self-defeated police

Racism is probably best described as self-defeat, anyway.
How do we learn to get along? Can we all just get along?
I remember the question, and I remember that heartache.
Now, in 2020, we have the fires of hatred, both in some human hearts, and in the streets of Minneapolis.
This is going to be a night that we must remember-- not in joy, but in despair.
Small business gets caught in the crossfire, every time.
But, then, common sense got caught in the cross-fire, when police officers, who
evidently were never properly trained and seldom disciplined, decided to kill a man
who was clearly cooperating, right on camera.
This kind of thing has happened repeatedly in recent years.
Now law and order seem destroyed, temporarily, due to the abdication of responsibility by
the police department there.
That abdication started when the police stopped being reasonable with a man who was helpless.
They have killed him, but now his sympathizers, in righteous or self-righteous anger, are
destroying a city.
I am, this night, watching those fires raging in Minneapolis.
It is hard to realize: the police have done all the wrong things, first punishing and killing
the innocent, even after their full cooperation; then, not taking action against those actually guilty of civil disruption. 

Now: Compound Grief: Deaths and Two Long, Long Years

Now I am still reeling from a series of deaths of people who loved me, and whom I loved.
Looking back to 2018, and, indeed to August 1 of 2017, I have so many deaths happening in rapid succession.
It wasn't just deaths at a distance anymore, it was both more distant deaths of persons I was normally close to, and the deaths of people with whom I've been very close.
My dearest aunt, my last two and dearest uncles, my dearest mother, and most recently my darling Lynn, the love of my life for close to 32 years.-- these have happened, in rapid and unrelenting procession.
Interspersing them have been deaths of historical personages...John McCain, Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush, (about whom I've researched and written much).
With these latest deaths, my mother, (June 14 through June 21 for her arrangements) running up until July 25 with the final funeral proceeding for my Lynn, the grief and heartache seem insurmountable.
As noted, it might have been different had there been much break, but a lengthy break, after 2017, there just wasn't. First there were the constant medical crises for my little mom, followed by an immediate set of same for Lynn.

The rate of the deaths might have been easier, had there not been so many disappointmenets, and surprise bad developments, leading to younger deaths than I or others had envisioned.

Now, I am dealing with all those quetions that I've finally been able to put to rest, but coulnd't for a time.
Trying, as well, to recover my nerves from all that late night jumping to wakefulness because one or another beloved person was in some new set of throes, sufferings and threats of imminent death.
One, after another, after another, came the calls, either from loved ones tellimg me the news at a distance, or from medical staff with new news of deeper hospitalization.

So now, as I sit in this cluttered apartment, filled with leftover furniture and small items that were dear to them and so to me, I am working through this as best I can.

What Is the REPUBLICAN Party now starting to pick up about Trump?

Mueller today issued a series of new indictments.

In the course of describing how that works, media analysts have noted the history of the NSA investigations involving looking into Trump's ties with Russia.

It's been noted that the investigations of Trump, basically started in 2014.

 In reality, they probably started in late 2013.

That was after the end of the 2012 election and after Trump had returned to the US after the Moscow beauty contest he had sponsored with cooperation of Vladimir Putin.

Here's the thing: the investigation has determined that Trump was engaged in questionable behavior in the months going into that pageant, and, indeed, New York State had an investigation in place as to Trump's New York-based business ties to illegal Russian banks.

The Russians showed, in the material that was turned up by the investigation, to have an interest in helping Trump win the Presidency as a way of getting revenge against Putin's enemies in US politics, shortly after the end of his pageant.

That said, it's interesting that the Russians also saw an opening for Trump--a path in which he could OBTAIN THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION.

The Republican Primary election of 2016 was a massively confused affair.  The field was overly crowded, and some were going to have to go. But it was clear there were some major names out there, that would have to go down before Trump's campaign for the GOP nomination. could win.

Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Marco Rubio. Others, such as Carly Fiorna, seemed unlikely if put up against Hillary or Joe Biden, to win the General.

However, a strong ticket could be put together composed of Kasich and Rubio. Both were from swing states, and a new effort at pulling in moderates and minorities, might have put them over. As a white female candidate, Hillary had a slightly different set of voters than Obama had, and so presented a different kind of threat.

In states in which the Democrats had been hard hit by Republican voter disenfranchisement efforts, minority voters had already dropped dramatically between 2008 and 2012. Obama lost ground in some areas due to that effort, and because of the subsequent drop in minority turnout due to disenfranchisement, lost some Electoral votes.

He lost the district vote in Nebraska, and also lost Indiana and North Carolina. His larger Popular vote figure also dropped.

But the GOP managed to get a new Supreme Court ruling, the Shelby ruling, that greatly enhanced voter disenfranchisement efforts in heavily minority districts and precincts. As a result, Obama's Party took a "shellacking" in 2014, and it was clear minority disenfranchisement would be a threat to any candidate trying to repeat Obama's appeals to minority voters.

But, Hillary's campaign had displayed a strength-- in the aftermath of such efforts-- which the Republicans had been unable to counter as of yet at that point, in that, with white female voters pulling for her in some areas, states Obama had lost might have some prospect of going BACK to Hillary from the GOP's result in 2012.

One key state in that regard, was North Carolina.

While the African-American vote has been severely limited by the new GOP-backed voter repression efforts there, Hillary had a constituency more resistant to being limited by GOP efforts.

It may be that the Russians knew it would take more than just the GOP's vote suppression efforts in NC to turn the state. And, Russia had been wanting to make a movement that would display to America that it could impact on our elections, to counter any military moves we might be making in Eastern Europe. They began to dabble in--and talk about dabbling in--US electrical systems.

On election night 2016, there was a power failure in a key county in NC and it had a suspicious quality.

Media at the time attempted to look into the outcome.  

They tried to ask questions, and tried to follow the actions of election officials in GOP dominated NC as to whether they would look into the causes of the power failures and equipment shutdowns.

No investigation occurred. Media questions went unanswered.

Another state appeared to have unusual election difficulties on election night:

Ohio.

As with NC, last minute events occurred on election night that may have effected the outcome.

Ohio had recently purchased and gotten operational, a brand new, state of the art, election and internet hacking detection system. It was designed to prevent and preclude the very kind of internet hack on election equipment that occurred in November 2016.

Media made this observation. And it was touted as a major step forward in countering any Russian effort to hack key states.

But, on election night, for some mysterious reason, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State TURNED OFF THE NEW HACK PREVENTION EQUIPMENT.

Though it had been expensive, it was turned off before it could do its job.

Meanwhile, three close states were recounted--or, at least, an attempt to recount those states was attempted. But the state governments were largely not cooperative, although Pennsylvania's did its best.

But in the aftermath, it was clear from visual examination of ballots versus computer exam, that Hillary had actually carried WI's 10 Electoral votes by about 8800 votes.

Going on to the next state, MI, we now know key Russian operatives, including some who were indicted by Robert Mueller today, were emailing each other after the election about how they were taking key steps to "cover their tracks" in hacking OH and MI. State government in WI and MI was not cooperative, but there was limited cooperation in PA, although the federal judge appealed to by recounters was hostile to the effort and refused to extend any deadlines for PA's recount.

Meanwhile, in FL, such operatives also sent similar track - covering references in their post-election e-mail.

All in all, Hillary's unique ability to draw white female voters in numbers needed to offset the loss of minority voters to GOP disenfranchisement efforts, was a major problem for the Russians. They had a plan, but they required an insider in America to help cover their tracks with the media and voters in general.

Here's the thing Republicans should be seeing at this point: all the way back in 2014, Russia wanted to ensure Donald Trump was the GOP nominee in 2016. They had already put together that, to beat Hillary, who could overcome the GOP voter suppression effort in key states in her female turnout vote, they needed a candidate who would help cover up their hacking efforts.

That someone was Donald Trump. And so, they set out, BEFORE THE GENERAL ELECTION EVER STARTED, to ensure that Donald Trump would win the GOP nomination.

One by one, each leading Republican candidate against Trump, was made to fail to win their home state, thus destroying their credibility as candidates.

As early as 2014, the Russians started putting this thing together. Their first targets were not Democrats, but Republicans.

Wake up, Republicans! They aren't "coming for you next" as many of you are wont to say right now. THEY'VE ALREADY COME FOR YOU.

 

My "connection" to Bill Clinton

Looking back over the years at all the incidents, allegations and suspicions that ended up surrounding
Bill Clinton, I have to confess that, I never had a connection to him, and always felt an...uneasiness about him. I also felt an uneasiness about the southern wing of the Democratic Party.

In 1988, I had worked for the Dukakis campaign --during the summer of that year. I made a few phone calls at his downtown campaign office. Previous to that, I had worked in the Public Policy Panel as a volunteer, helping organize some brochures. I had met Brownie Ledbetter there, and was happy to work for a progressive for whom I had learned, through media exposure, to have respect. Her husband was a highly regarded Professor at the University of Arkansas.

 I was, at that time, engaged in the early stages of my still incomplete (perhaps of necessity) book "The Great Old Record of the Grand Old Party---Cheating?". One of my goals in that research had been to expose how badly and how often the GOP had cheated since its inception.

The first detailed thing  I'd tried to focus on and track down, which became a focus of my first book Tim, George Bush and Me: the Undercurrents In All Our Lives. (copyrighted June 1996) had been the Bush and Allen Dulles connections during WW2. I had been inspired by my late brother Tim's death, to write about him and my life with him, while my ongoing research into the larger issue of GOP election chicanery had inspired me to include my research about the Bush family before and during WW2. An unusual radio ad for a book I had heard in Houston in the summer of 1980, had first piqued my interest in GHW Bush and put me on the trail of GOP antics in the 1944 election.

 My work for Dukakis that summer was, in fact, the first--and, thus far, the only--time I ever worked for a Presidential candidate or campaign. Lynn had also been for him.  I had met her in October 1987 at the Unitarian Church here in LR. She is Jewish, a member of Temple B'nai Israel here. Unitarians are often a way for people to meet across denominational and religious lines.

I had fallen in love with Lynn during that previous year, and Dukakis's Jewish wife was a favorite issue of mine for my own fantasy--somewhere in the back of my head--of my own possible future with Lynn. I had hoped to marry her, but never has money--or insurance--actually worked out for tha to happen. (People don't realize how insurance can impact on romance).

Even as I was researching earlier possible GOP Presidential election scandals, when I decided to work for awhile for Dukakis and keep up with his campaign, I was appalled to once again have seen another example of dirty tricks by the GOP. Dukakis was slammed by near-constant tv ads by the big corporate funded GHW Bush campaign.  At that time, the Democrats were still holding the line on being funded by big corporations, since the CEOs of those tended to hold views which were antithetical to America's working and middle class.

After his defeat, by that mass advertising built on lies and exaggeration, I realized, as had other Democrats, that a different strategy might be needed. More regions of the nation seemed to have needed attention, was one spin. Carter had won in 1976, (though he had failed of re-election).

However, I was not impressed with the Southern wing, at least, of the Democratic Party. My own father, though I loved him and have since written about him, as well, in my second copyrighted book The Diplomats, Dad and Me: The Blurring of the Lines in Life (copyright Jan 2011), had been a southern Democrat in the classic conservative tradition.

But his views, summed up too often in George Wallace's public--though some claim not private--views on race, were disgusting to me, and we had some pretty tough words at times. Dad had, however, been one of the first JFK conspiracy theorists--and Vietnam war critics--that I was to know. During JFK's funeral, shortly after the Jack Ruby shooting of Oswald, my dad pointed on LBJ when he came on-screen and said "that's the bastard that killed John F. Kennedy". And dad never had a good word to say about him after that.

As LB J continued to escalate the war, Dad continued to be a skeptic and critic of his policies. Though my high school teachers were saying the Johnson Administration believed it was on the "path to success" and the "path to peace" in Vietnam, those next years became more tumultuous, as Johnson wavered between support for Civil Rights at home, and drafting young blacks from impoverished backgrounds to serve on the front lines.

But Dad fell for Wallace's side of the argument, and when 1967 rolled around and the inevitable confrontation between LBJ and RFK began to crop up, the skeptics about the war found a voice and the Democratic Party began to split along the northern-southern lines we have seen almost continuously today.

During those years, while I lived here in AR, I'd never heard much about BILL Clinton. But, just once, in a totally non-political setting, I met Hillary Rodham. She was in our small family furniture and crafts business. It was in 1970 or '71. I was standing at the counter, asked if I could help her locate anything, and she was "just browsing". I had just received my high school ring, and was wearing it pretty religiously. As she moved back to the door, she pointed to my ring and said "That's really beautiful." A young man came in and I don't believe I ever saw his face, but he seemed to say they needed to travel on. It could be it was Bill Clinton.

Since the election, that moment in time has often come up in my mind. Over subsequent years, from 1976-83, I lived in Houston. I would visit up here occasionally, but the only news I usually got was the little on Little Rock tv.

However, by 1984, I had heard a few allegations and attacks on Clinton. Hillary was then the First Lady of Arkansas, and I recognized her face from mom and dad's store. She seemed popular in her own right, and years later, in 1988 while working at the Public Policy Panel, I learned she was popular with our local feminist leaders such as Brownie Ledbetter.

When Dukakis made his run, I was determined to help him win. I had not worked in the Mondale campaign, though I had voted for him. I was an early feminist, having supported the ERA in published letters to Newsweek, Arkansas Gazette and Arkansas Democrat. During Vietnam, I had been part of Women for A Peaceful Christmas in Madison, Wisconsin, and my mom and sisters vociferously joined their effort to weaken corporate influence in America through making the craft items that group sent out directions for.

Johnson let go of the effort at re-election in the face of dropping poll numbers in key states in the primaries. In my own life, dad was there, in the background, constantly the skeptic and conspiracy theorist regarding LBJ.

McCarthy succeeded pretty well in NH, but later conspiracy theorists were to claim Johnson deliberately didn't seek re-election to deflect or defeat suspicion that he'd killed JFK--and perhaps Martin Luther King and RFK.

In any case. the 1968 election brought to a head the "Dixiecrat" problem among Democrats. Gradually, that group drifted more and more into Independent status, and now, is trying to be Republicans. Now, all the ugliness that used to characterize that third party movement, is with us in the GOP.

Over those years, Bill Clinton came and went, first as Governor and then Pres. But his positions were controversial and regarded with some suspicion by liberals. How could a southerner possibly be a progressive? At least, a genuine progressive?  Yet, he did succeed in bringing some sanity to our gun laws, achieving a ban on assault weapons that lasted until Bush's son, George W. Bush, managed to--some would argue, cheat--his way into the White House and undo that ban and start a horrific war in Iraq.

During those years of Clinton as governor, I had said little, but after his Presidency seemed to turn to a parade of allegations of sexual infidelity, I became embarrassed and was glad I had refrained from working in his campaigns.

Though I definitely knew I wouldn't vote for Bush, in 1992, I was more conflicted about Bob Dole by 1996. He had served honorably in WW2--something for which I wasn't quite so sure about Bush--while, meantime, more scandals about, largely, infidelity tormented Clinton. I reluctantly voted for him, based on the hope his policies would be more progressive than those of Dole.

I was disappointed. Clinton's second term, as has been the case with several Presidents, deteriorated badly from his first. His policies drifted way too far Right for my tastes. He buddied up with Larry Summers and other ultra-right economists and supported the disastrous and usurious Gramm-Leach-Bililey Act which allowed corporate banks to to get interest that was previously considered illegal. This was especially disappointing given his earlier history as a state Prosecuting Attorney enforcing Arkansas's famously progressive consumer loan programs, which hold interest rates way down for consumers here.

I felt, like Brownie Ledbetter and others at Public Policy Panel, that Hillary should be in the White House, and saw her as the real "ace in the hole" for Progressives of the Clinton years.

To the extent it helped Progressives and feminists get a woman further along toward the White House, I was for the Clinton campaign.

During the 2016 campaign, I helped a couple of elderly ladies in nursing homes to vote via absentee ballot, and helped arrange for others to help still others. Two of those ladies were my Lynn and my own mom, both of home reside in nursing facilities. My little mom had always told me, all my life, that she wasn't registered to vote but that "if they ever run a woman for President, I want to register and vote."
BOOM. So, I helped mom vote! And, I was glad Lynn got to vote again. (Like me, Lynn had voted for Gore in 2000, managing to hobble in the rain to the polls using a cane.)
We were once again up against the Bush family, and, both times he ostensibly "won", there had been and continue to be, significant doubts as to his win.

Anyway, I never directly worked for Bill Clinton. About the only thing I can say, in his behalf, in the midst of the newest allegations the GOP has revived or magnified recently in light of the disgusting Roy Moore antics in Alabama, is that at the time of his terms of office, no one ever alleged rape and really the charge was not, at that time, harassment or rape, but more just that he'd been cheating on Hillary. Allegations of murder, however, dogged his heels, and I haven't hesitated to investigate and further investigation of, those allegations. Now, a new or repeated allegation of rape by Juanita Broderick, who had at one time claimed a rape, and then recanted her claim, has surfaced.

Once again, we must ask troubling questions about top Democrats on a progressive issue, that of sexual harassment and whether the allegations are true or trumped up for political or sociopathic reasons. 

During my presentation for my Master of Arts degree, one of my professors stated "I can't stand Bill Clinton, Max" seemingly in response to my statements about how "funny looking" George H. W. Bush's WW2 records are. Apparently, he was uncomfortable withe allegations about Bush, because, like many people, he had "bought" Bush. But, aside from that, was the troubling realization he, like some of my classmates, was assuming that, because I was extrapolating negative possibilities about Bush in WW2, I must, therefore, have been supporting Clinton.

But by 1998, when I made my presentation, the 1996 campaign was even over, and Clinton hadn't been opposed by Bush, but by Dole. Nevertheless, some people's thinking required them to tie me to Clinton, though I'd never worked for his campaign as I had for Dukakis, Bush's original opponent.

So, with this climate, the classmates and the late professor, are going back into their usual conspiracy theories about me and Bill Clinton, I suppose. But this time around, they can explain their thinking. I don't think I'm going to have to explain mine.



 

Republican Base--or CONSERVATIVE Base?

Pundits and analysts say the 35 or 37 percent Trump approval crowd is a "Republican base" but its history suggests otherwise. While people in said group are conservative, their voting history is more skittish. Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Dixiecrats, and other Independent candidates have won their votes instead of GOP candidates --and still others have won their votes in state level races.

As far as being reliably conservative, they are; as far as being reliably Republican, not so much.

So a 35% vote becomes more like 17% when you look at reliability of  the conservative base vote as GOP fans.

Such phenomena best  explains "moderate Republicans"--and why the GOP is never going  to give this "base" 100% of what it  wants. Even when GOP has been reliably conservative itself, it has found it self left in the lurch sometimes.

What Grover Cleveland's political history really reveals about Electoral-only victories

I just watched a discussion on "Meet the Press" about the "failed" Clinton campaign of 2016 in which various persons blamed Hillary for the "failure" of the campaign.
With a nearly 3 million Popular vote lead over Trump, it is difficult to call Hillary a "loser" in the campaign.
Yet, corporate talking head shills found a way to rationalize such a fluke as if it were under the control of the politicians involved.
Some of the participants put down Hillary's bringing in anti-woman sentiments as a factor, but, the truth is, even doing that is putting the outcome on a level of discussion it doesn't really deserve.
The political career of President Grover Cleveland is the best illustration of what is really involved when there is a gap between Electoral and  Popular vote.
In 1884, Cleveland was elected President, in both the Popular and the Electoral vote.
In 1888, he was up for re-election, but failed to achieve a lead in the Electoral College, though a modest lead in the Popular vote.
Cleveland came back in 1892 and won election again, in both the Popular and Electoral vote. In each case, historians and journalists found that the whole thing was best explained by FLUKES in the election system--oddball failures of election machines (newfound gadgets) and election clerk errors around the nation, but most especially in one or two states.
The real lesson in 2016, has also been that--as, indeed, errors or manipulations best explained the outcome in the other three Electoral gap elections since our two parties have existed, 1876, 1888 a and 2000.
In 1876, even many Republicans have acknowledged that a fishy "Electoral Commission" which worked in several ways to ensure the election of "Rutherfraud" B. Hayes, by shifting a single Electoral vote to Hayes, a Civil War general opposed to slavery versus Tilden a Democrat who had advocated removal of US troops from the Reconstruction South.
In 1888, flukes and errors explained the Electoral/Popular gap.
In 2000, a complex failure by the news media in "calling" Florida too soon for Gore, caused some w. Florida panhandle voters to leave the poll lines a bit too early, while a computer in s. Florida was videotaped "counting backwards" to favor W. Bush. And the counts got down to as low as 34 votes in later media recounts using each of the four "ballot interpretation" methods in Florida that were forbidden of carrying forward when the Supreme Court, dominated by Republican appointees, shut down any future recounts in Florida and gave the Electoral College--though not the Popular vote--to W. Bush.
Ironically, in 2004, Bush seems by many new and old pieces of evidence to have similarly won a lead in the Popular vote--partly in the wake of 911--but possibly failed to legally win the Electoral College, as Kerry got an apparent lead in Exit polls in Ohio, which, combined with data now about uncounted Provisional ballots and some locked up voting machines in Cuyahoga County there (which resulted in some OH election officials being convicted of violating the Voting Rights Act) strongly suggest Kerry was the first and thus far only Democrat to win the Electoral College but lose the lead in the Popular vote, with Bush playing Gore's role in an even bigger Popular vote lead over Kerry while losing in the Electoral College. (That, in turn, might be a cautionary tale to the GOP as to whether they should support efforts to abolish or amend interpretation of the Electoral versus Popular vote).
Now, in 2016, we see a series of odd looking failures to adequately examine ballots in at least 5 states, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, deprived America of an accurate election outcome.
Was Russia involved? Perhaps, we don't know but it's looking like it. But key here, is understanding that, when one candidate fails to achieve the Popular vote, they have likely failed in the Electoral College and an adequate examination of the outcomes after the fact has repeatedly revealed that.
There is no "failure" by a candidate to explain this, it is a product of flukes and fishiness.

Another Example of An Impossible "Coalition"

Trump faces a serious problem: he was elected by an "impossible" coalition. These are not unheard of in U.S. politics and history.

Now, it's true that there are always factions within the two parties, and that these are sometimes at odds over a range of relatively innocuous issues. There is also the "swing" state issue, which creates the phenomena of the "Blue dog" or conservative Democrat and the Liberal or "Moderate" Republican.

But, on rare occasions, especially when a single or possible two major issues dominate the Presidential campaign, we get what we are witnessing now: an IMPOSSIBLE coalition.

One of the most recent examples of this was in 1968-72, and in that case it was the single issue of the Vietnam war.

Humphrey was attempting to form such a coalition between war hawk Wallace Democrats (former Dixiecrats in some cases) and the far Left and liberal doves, who wanted a de-escalation or  immediate exit from Vietnam.

Wallace's politically impossible position was to somehow win voters in the South who weren't being swayed by Nixon to vote Republican for the first time in a lifetime in support of strong military in Vietnam and a slowing of busing in the South, while simultaneously pulling the black support he still had to have to survive as a viable and sizable third party entity in the South and swing states.

One result was the God-awful 1968 Chicago Democratic convention, which brought to a blood soaked (literally) head the contradictory positions. The result was that divided Democrats couldn't carry Illinois--and in losing it, lost both the Popular vote and the Electoral College that year.

To use analogies from that, then, today the Tea Party represents the core in the more solidly Red states while moderate Repubs are in the Swing and border states--today's "Wallace" or conservative faction from 1968. These were pivotal to a GOP victory in the White House race.

Trump played for Tea Party support in one set of states in order to get that narrow margin of the Far Right he needed to beat out other Republicans for the GOP nomination. That would have SEEMED to have committed him to Far Right economic and political positions, across the board. Yet Trump appealed to such conservatives ONLY IN THOSE SELECT STATES. His rhetoric THERE matched the wishful thinking hopes of the Far Right, which finally thought it was hearing from someone who was 100% where they were on issues.

Yet, equally pivotal, this year, for Trump, ended up being those on the Left who balked at supporting Hillary's more centrist views on foreign policy, corporate America and limited public health care act set up under Obama. When Trump left Alabama (for example), after talking there like the conservative's conservative, he went up to Michigan and spoke exactly the OPPOSITE, saying he was interested in what Bernie Sanders, who was on the Left of Hillary's positions on several public positions including the narrow coverage of the current health care system--and that he would responsibly bring back jobs to the American industrial heartland.

New data now suggests that Russia also circulated "fake news" at key Left websites that helped to exaggerate the Left's break with Hillary. In any case, the coalition for Trump thus created put him over in pivotal Democrat and Swing states--the ones in which we saw the Green Party question and attempt to recount.

Those Left voters are simply not supporting Trump now that the Congressional Budget Office numbers show the "repeal and replace" is not an improvement over what we had already.

Meanwhile, any attempts by Trump to maintain credibility with his Left supporters, watered down his "purist" approach to "repealing" Obamacare. That, in turn, caused that purist group in the Far Right to refuse to back his own health care bill. 

Back to the drawing board means further conflict-fraught discussions, meetings, and formings and re-formings of the GOP. All in all, not a pleasant harbinger for the "Hubert Humphrey" of 2017, Donald Trump.

And Behold, A New Heaven and a New Earth

As some have foreseen, we have dramatic new proof of life in the universe beyond Earth, as NASA announced the discovery of a new solar system containing up to seven earth-like planets. This adds to a growing list of exoplanets that could be inhabited by life, including intelligent life.
It requires us to continue to grow up in our perceptions about ourselves, our planet and our universe.

Electoral College Tragedies

So now, we begin a new scandal-ridden, incompetent , controversial, probably ultimately tragic, Electoral-only Presidential administration.

How we proceed and progress as a nation a this point may affect many generations to come

As usual, the likes of these administrations demonstrate, once again, the tragedy of our current Electoral College system.

As has been the case almost invariably in such outcomes, an incompetent extremist who could not ultimately win a general election has been given all power-- instead of merely some sharing of power in a "consolation prize"  signifying a winning of a majority of the states.

Such outcomes have not served our nation well. There have been four since 1876 and the beginning of our current two parties.

happy the Presidential race has setlled out so far to Hillary surviving

with Trump now the one in greater jeopardy.
With the clearance by the FBI, it seems the Clinton candidacy is once again viable and the Dems can plan on running her.
Meanwhile, there is still the dissension within the GOP ranks, so that Trump has a ways to go in getting full support from his fellow Republicans.

Can Hillary overcome the negatives due to the FBI spokesman's remarks today about "reckless" e-mail.

On another topic, I am currently working with two new updates for my website, maxstandridge.net
One is a pro-Bush item, regarding another way in which a radio ad might have appeared only one or two or three times, at a station or stations. This has to do with an article appearing some years ago in Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. The article discusses an event in which filler was used to produce a bizarre and controversial item in a publication.

A similar phenomenon could have occurred in an on-air situation at the radio station(s) in question.

On the other hand, an "anti-Bush" aspect of at least the Guam water-landing might have to do with the interesting, coincidental timing of the "orbit" maneuvers of Bush and the Japanese naval and land-based aircraft during the Battle of the Philippines Sea. The fact two occurred so closely in time could be a signal that something had been communicated ahead of the event pertaining to a "signal" from or about Dulles's prearranged courier at the time of that battle. Bush orbited his carrier, and didn't land on it again, at the same time the Japanese were orbiting the Marianas in their aircraft.

There are several interesting aspects of this.

A Triple Jeopardy for America?

My concern at this point in time, is coming from three directions:
we are approaching an election in which two sizable third party turnouts may occur.
On the Right, or Center-Right, appears to be the Libertarian Party. Pulling more GOP voters than usual by having moderate candidates, they could cost Trump some Electoral votes, if certain key events which will be postulated below, DON'T happen.
On the Left, is the Green Party, as well as the various Socialist Parties around the nation. These are probably going to have a big turnout this year, as well, with another, similar potential impact on the Democrats that the Libertarians may have on the GOP.

At the supposed Center, we have two candidates:

Hillary Clinton, the supposed presumptive nominee at this point. On National Security issues, she is perceived as strong, but on economic issues she has embarrassingly weak polling among those who place economic issues at the top of their agenda at this point, especially young people, and, most embarrassing of all, perhaps, among young white women. She also seems inordinately secretive at this point, even after several months of opportunity, of reveal what she said in various meetings and speeches before, various corporate groups. This latter could probably be exaggerated, since speeches before groups, even corporate groups, are frequently funded by individual donations that are pooled to appear to be one larger one. But it is still something to make one pause.

Donald Trump, the apparent GOP nominee, assuming he's going to pass muster legally. His controversial and contradictory "positions" and lack of a structure policy position on many issues, has left many people who genuinely want a GOP victory, groping to find a reason to support him. He seems able to command a dedicated cadre, but, like Sanders supporters, these people are not strongly associated with either major party and often show no real commitment, or even interest, in the two major parties.

But the biggest concern, aside from these essentially popularity issues, is what has just been being mentioned: where do EITHER of these folks stand, legally, at this point.

Will Hillary end up being indicted by a hostile Congress which would do anything to bring her down, even if normal channels might not? She remains somewhat closed about both her potential ethical problems vis a vis some larger corporations, as well as the issue of her possibly National Security related e-mail issues.

As tor Trump,  he is currently embroiled rhetorically with a judge who actively investigating, and must make a ruling on, his business dealings at the controversial "Trump University." Whether there is merit to the case against him on that issue, he has raised a new level of difficulty for himself by putting into the picture, by his own actions and words, the possibility of a Contempt of Court issuance against him by the said judge in the case.

Should the latter happen, Trump would be either a flawed candidate, or, if successful, an Impeached President.

With those daunting prospects hanging out in front of them, is it any wonder some Democrats and Republicans who are concerned about the well-being of their respective Parties, are wondering just what they are getting themselves into if these are, in fact, the nominees?

But there is yet another--at third-- daunting daunting prospect hanging, at least, the Democrats:
What is it becomes impossible to run Hillary by the time of the convention, and Sanders is therefore able to secure the nomination, through some process or other?

Then, we are only one serious and significant terrorist attack away from a possible Trump Presidency.

So, let's look at all three of these things. Recent ISIS internet and media traffic is calling for massive levels of terror attacks internationally, on a scale they have only recently begun to assert. This is probably in the wake of some fairly significant geographic losses and the consequent potential embarrassment for their cause. By bringing off a series of minor, or one or two major, terror attacks here in the States and Europe, they could actually impact our Presidential election, with Sanders perceived as weak in the whole area of national defense among voters who are so far only "registered" and not "likely" in the current contests.

Meanwhile, Sanders at the helm of the Democrats going into the election after this, the Dems go down to defeat. Hillary appears to be indicted for her e-mail offenses.

Meanwhile, our new President, Donald Trump, is cited for Contempt of Court, which is at minimum a Misdemeanor. He must, then, stand for Impeachment.

Holy Smokes, folks.

 

Interim update, going into November 2016 election

We've got a real situation going on, heading into November 2016

And it seems to be uncharted ground in many ways. Mom, meantime, is still hanging on and I am trying to do my best to concentrate on her care and emotional support.
I have new info. that I will be putting on my Site, and have shared part of it already on Facebook.
New details about the Pakistani and Saudi connections to bin Ladin, etc.
Meanwhile, it's back to my dear mom.

Things that tell us the Patterson "Bigfoot" film is a hoax

include data found by James Randi and others:
1. the time-frame given by Patterson does not wash: he was not in an area where he could get the film developed
2. to get it developed in time to show it to a group of scientists the next day, is just impossible.
3. he could have carried the film to a larger town with a print facility, but not on the time-frame he alleges he did it in; there simply was too much distance to cover, and the day of the week is also wrong

So, on balance, it's clear the Patterson film is a hoax, and a set of data of other kinds also supports this reality.
One part of the latter, is that Patterson had written a book with an illustration that closely matches the "creature" he ended up filming, complete with large breasts and a sagittal crest on the head
These traits don't occur among humans, but Patterson's bigfoot clearly has to be human since it has human, not primate, footprints.
The presence of ape suits in the area during that time frame, was another clue. There were a few too many people with them in the area, a remote forested area of northern California. It simply wasn't party city.

179 Electoral votes do not a President make

and this is the best argument for the Dukakis campaign not seeking recounts in those other states that probably would have gone Democrat in 1988: after all, such recounts cost money, and the Democrats were hard-pressed in that first election year of the Big Money years that we've been seeing ever since.

The Democrats felt they'd "got a clue" in running Clinton with more conservative and pro-corporate positions in order to receive some of that big campaign money themselves.

But what I've tried to point out, in my own research, is that the 1988 campaign had, within it, something else: that "undercurrent" of the Bush family style, little...call them semi- or even actual irregularities: in Maryland, the NSA had been found, in 1989, to have wiretapped the Maryknoll nuns who had opposed their operations in Nicaragua--operations that were investigated as part of the Iran/Contra scandal.

Ed Rollins's comments on "walking around money" in New Jersey were, admittedly, in the aftermath of Christy Todd Whitman's GOP campaign there. But he accompanied it with the statement: "that's quite common," and the context was that he was talking to local and regional activists.

The great "flu out" of 1988, mentioned at times in mass media coverage on election night, was also a big factor in Dukakis's anemic showing on the east coast, and in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Michigan. As noted earlier, much of the real dynamic of this "flu out" was something the media finally caught--thanks in part to reporting on the internet--in 2004 in Ohio: the lock up of voting booths, often in Democrat-oriented precincts.

Another undercurrent was when Bentsen was handed a note saying Dukakis had determined he'd lost, earlier on election night. While such states and areas as western Michigan, western Texas, New Mexico and California were still very much voting, and while voter groups were in process of requesting extension of poll closing times due to lengthy lines at the polls in Memphis, St. Louis, and in several locations in Ohio, Bentsen went live on TV and conceded.

Only later, did he learn this note was NOT from Dukakis, at all. The subsequent history of the investigation of this mysterious note issue, is murky to non-existent.

Hillary is a Clinton, but I think I need to add

that she probably does have an extra level of popularity from the previous Clinton. This has relatively little to do with the name itself, but more about recognition in the media. This, however, is still not the big thing she has going for her:
by default, the GOP has allowed the Democrats to co-opt the women's vote in the coming Presidential election. Had they touted a big name, such as, say, Condi Rice, by now, there might have been a real horse race for the 2016 Presidential victory, based on a division of the women's vote.

As it is, women are where blacks and other minorities were in 2008: having witnessed a long history of white male dominance of the White House, they can easily assume that Hillary, being the first woman with this real potential to win, may also be the last for a long time--as Obama supporters could reasonably have viewed his candidacy in 2008.

This is the phenomenon that would create the Hillary victory, that common issue that women--of all political ideologies, actually--may share. Just as Obama got the Republican "Colin Powell vote" in 2008 and somewhat still in 2012 (again, the re-election being based on the idea that, having been the first to be able to win, give him one more term, on the grounds it'll be the last time for a long, long time), so Hillary will get the women's vote.

It's powerful stuff, all right. There is a great deal of not only voting numbers involved, but political and even physical energy ignited.

Assumptions that are largely urban myths

These include several things that have managed to get into print numerous times, and sometimes into other forms of media on occasion. Above all, the quality that comes through in these particular cases, is that persons in academia and professional areas of work, have also largely accepted these as being valid "explanations" for certain events.

One: that Ray Santilli, the infamous "alien autopsy" film maker, had no actual film of any kind from the 1947, and certainly none that showed anything funny at all.

The truth is not so easy. There are at least three strips of film from 1947 that Santilli had in his possession and presented to the media-- early on. When it was revealed the biggest part of the alleged autopsy "film" was  actually on videotape that didn't exist in 1947, Santilli said that he had been forced to duplicate the remainder of the film because it had deteriorated or been stolen and/or destroyed by unknown parties apparently trying to cover something up.

This would be a laughable thing, were it not for the fact that the strips of film in question show rather interesting things. They show a disk-shaped object in some lighted doorway or other. These are on regular photographic film of the 1947 era. These appear to show not only the disk-shaped object in a doorway, but some kind of weird-looking staircase or ladder. The way this stairway is lit, is very bizarre, and not easily explained by anything I can come up with.

So, we have these little bits and pieces of film that show these weird images, and we have this "confessor" who says he participated in a hoax, and he's a former RAF member at the same time. IF there is an effort by RAF to cover up UFOs and so forth, his "confession" is highly suspect. He asserts he is in the video, and appears to be so.

But, once again, what people are missing here, is that Santilli didn't deny he had made a video: he said the video he made, was attempting to duplicate what he had originally had on film--the same film  of which the three strips appear to include these bizarre-looking and, really, somewhat inexplicable images.

If the RAF confessor participated in the making of the video, it doesn't automatically follow that Santilli deliberately made the video for fraudulent purposes, and, therefore, does not necessarily follow that the confessor's role was as an accessory to fraud. If there were a deliberate effort to discredit Santilli by stealing or destroying most of his original film, an RAF member being on the staff shooting an attempt to duplicate the filmed scenes would be the ideal way to discredit it.

Doesn't mean that's what happened, but still isn't something that can be answered by just repeating the urban myth. One must also explain what is in those strips of actual film.

Two: that the reason GHW Bush's carrier's log remained classified longer than virtually any other United States Navy ship of WW2, was because crewmen from that carrier were captured by the Japanese and beheaded and/or eaten by the Japanese on Chi Chi Jima island in 1944.

The truth is, there were men in Bush's squadron who were shot down over or near Chi Chi Jima, However, none of these men were from Bush's carrier. There were no men from Bush's carrier who were shot down and captured by the Japanese.

This may seem like a technical difference. But the men who were shot down and eaten by the Japanese on the island, were from other carriers. And those carriers' logs were not kept classified as Bush's carrier's log was.

There is some other explanation for why the San Jacinto's log was kept classified until the Reagan administration in the 1980s, when all others were declassified by the end of the Kennedy Administration in 1963.

Three: several people are assuming that George W. Bush was elected President in some manner or other, in both 2000 and 2004.

The fact is, there is powerful evidence to the contrary in both instances. This evidence is so powerful, in fact, as to be almost overwhelming.  Yet some persons, in various shades of political ideology perceive the Bush family to be political super people, who are very powerful and popular.

Four: Simultaneously, the same groups of people are making the assumption that people with the last name of Clinton are in some manner political super people. They point out that Bill Clinton was elected President twice, and that his wife got elected Senator from New York.

The truth is somewhat different: Bill Clinton got elected by narrow pluralities in both of his races  He won in a circumstance that is very unusual in US Presidential elections: a three-way race. The other Presidents in recent memory to whom this happened, were Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated shortly after his re-election; Woodrow Wilson, who suffered a near-fatal, disabling stroke during his second term, after falling from popularity with the thousands of women who had, for the first time in history, become active in politics and gotten him re-elected because he "kept us out of war" (and then promptly declared war on Germany weeks after being re-elected); and Richard Nixon, who had been impeached over the Watergate scandal after having been re-elected in 1972.

Other Presidents have, admittedly, benefited from three-way races, though: none of them fared well historically.

Hillary Clinton ran against Obama for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, and, though she was much better known than Obama, was defeated. Was she defeated because she was an ineffective campaigner, or did she lose because she was a relatively unpopular politician? One powerful argument in favor of the latter, is the actual numbers from the 1992 and 1996 Presidential election. They show her husband won by default in a three way race.

Similarly, the Bush name is bandied about in some quarters because it is a "winner's" name. Reality begins to sink in a little differently. GHW Bush sought the Republican nomination against Reagan in 1980, and was defeated. In 1988 Bush defeated Michael Dukakis for President by outspending him on tv advertising almost 20 to 1 in some key states.

My research shows Dukakis would have had a total of about 179 Electoral votes, almost without question, upon a recount. And there were other states recountable, including Lloyd Bentsen's  home state of Texas, in which he was running for Senator and Vice-President simultaneously, with thousands of those ballots being somewhat confused and confusing to the vote-counting process.

Also recountable was Jesse Jackson's Illinois, where lines a mile long were in place as the polls closed, due to lack of polling places.

This latter was repeated in New Jersey, Connecticut and Ohio. The media reported a "flu out" as voters with influenza were forced to get out of line to vote. Media types noted this dropping out of line by voters, by saying "flu was epidemic among voters".

Shades of his son W's race of 2004, when researchers discovered polling booths had been locked away in black precincts, and for which federal investigators found enough solid evidence to jail several Republican political operatives for violations of the Voting Rights Act in Ohio.

In New Jersey, a top '88 Bush adviser admitted to the use of "walking around money" to bribe African-American ministers to not provide rides to the polling places for their congregants. "That's quite common," he said.

In Missouri, in 1988, blacks reported being harassed by off-duty police officers, who intimidated some blacks away from voting booths and blocked streets leading into voting booth parking lots in St. Louis. Voting rights groups attempted legal actions asking judges to extend the voting booth deadline to allow the long lines of voters to participate, an effort doomed to failure by GOP-appointed judges in the area.

A similar phenomenon was reported outside of Memphis, TN and Jacksonville, FL in the 2000 election.

I guess these things run in families, but the point is that these two family names are not political super people. They are names with which mindless pretty boy and pretty girl media types are familiar, so that means they are "popular."

Urban myths, repeated frequently or in mass media, are urban myths, nonetheless.  Both the major parties may default to these two odious names. There may be another low turnout US Presidential election, and more third-party activity that has a history of costing both parties the White House just about equally. It makes for an election just as unpredictable as any other combination of names among the two (or three) parties.









                

So, trying to change focus away from Bush in WW2, but new material

keeps turning up, each time I try to do so. First, I was going to let go of the whole thing, since my original sources seemed to have died.
Now, I've received some data indicating one or two may still be around.
Then, new data that Robert Maxwell may, indeed, have been murdered--and in a fashion fitting a rogue element at some intelligence agency.

Maxwell was a key suspect in the "book ad of 1980" that I experienced.

Also, the constant question: why were Bush's carrier's records kept classified until 1983, 20 years longer than almost any other US warship of WW2?

What would have made them so much more sensitive?

What were the vaults at Chi Chi Jima designed to do? What secrets did the Nazi expeditions into Tibet and nearby regions, produce in the way of new or ancient technologies or methodologies?

So many questions...the only thing besides some kind of illegal activity at least on Allen Dulles's part, that could explain this delay in the declassification of the Bush carrier's log, could be this about the ancient things out of Tibet...things the Axis could have accessed and used as a lever with Dulles, just as Dulles may have engaged in elaborate negotiations at a time when such were not authorized.

Doesn't make him a bad guy, necessarily--depending on the details. Was he suckered, or is intriguing data about magnetic and sound usage by ancients in Tibet something that relates to the Chi Chi Jima vaults and some destroyed or hidden methodologies out of ancient Tibet? Dulles was working primarily for private interests, including energy-oriented companies, rather than any government.

Such private entities could be the real agents keeping such data a secret, in order to utilize it themselves in the whole area of lifting, moving and manipulating heavy objects, and possibly as a source of energy. If so, that secret could not be accessed by investigating any government in the world.

GHW Bush political/government history and election irregularities: a lot of coincidences

Over the years of my investigation of the Bush family shortly before, during and since WW2, I've put together a long series of what can only be described as...eerie coincidences.
1934-1941: Bush family associates plot the assassination of FDR. FDR is hated by all the upper crust families, including the Rockefellers, DuPonts, and Prescott Bush. Among other things, the Far Right in that period, is incensed at FDR's continued political success. His successive terms, become a thorn in the side of Prescott, and he instills this intense dislike/hatred into his sons, including GHW.  These families have little but contempt for the mass of people, and the Depression works quite well for them. (Those economic policies, coincidentally, are re-instituted decades later when GHW Bush is within a heartbeat of a White House, under Ronald Reagan, which is, at best, in chaos as to who speaks with the President. Donald Regan, for example, who served the Reagan Administration in two different Cabinet posts over those eight years, never once meets with his President. Meanwhile, the Iran/Contra hearings reveal what is perhaps the biggest scandal of the Reagan years--not the illegal sale of arms to Iran per se (though that was scandal enough) but the fact that all the decision-making was done in rooms of men that didn't include the President, but did include the Vice-President.)
1944-5: Prescott Bush's close associate, attorney and business partner, Allen Dulles, engages in numerous rogue operations at OSS--later CIA. He arranges to attempt numerous illegal negotiations with the Axis in behalf of Big Banks, Big Oil and other Big Money, including that of he and his brother John Foster, both of whom are to subsequently head State and CIA in the post-war years. During the summer of 1944, much is going on as the GOP, desperate to defeat FDR, attempts numerous activities to derail his foreign policy. Much murkiness as to the whereabouts of Bush associate and business partner James Forrestal, as to his whereabouts in the Pacific that summer. This, while GHW Bush is allegedly flying a plane in the Pacific for just ordinary reasons. In May, 1944, Big Money associates of Prescott Bush pressure FDR and Britain to resume oil and gasoline sales to Fascist Spain, from whence they have--and now do again--head directly to Nazi Germany: as this begins to hit, GHW Bush begins flying a warplane in the Pacific against the Nazi allied Japanese. Controversial records now are apparent in Bush's now-spotty war records, including June, 1944 near Guam, later in 1944 at the Peleliu and Palau campaigns, and in September (or October) 1944, near Chi Chi Jima. In May, 1944, also, Bush's original roommate disappears.In subsequent American Presidential election, we will see a pattern in which GHW Bush appears to "mimic" his perception of FDR as a multiple term illicit President. Becoming agent for a 49-state sweep in both 1972 and 1984, a defeat of an incumbent Southerner in 1980, and the Electoral-only victory of his son--coupled with the "funny looking" 2004 election results at both the Presidential and Senatorial levels. All, seem, in the context of a close examination of Bush family perceptions of FDR, a mimicking of his allegedly bogus success.
1960: JFK admin. announces that all US warship logs from WW2 will finally be de-classified.
Yet, somehow, in 1963, when Bush's carrier's log was supposed to be declassified, it, unlike most ships, escapes declassification. Its declassification was put off until 1983--20 years later.
Powerful evidence appears in Bush's records suggesting he is employed, not by the regular Navy during WW2, but as a reconaissance photographer for the OSS (later CIA). This appears to be the real beginning of Bush's CIA career.
 1963-69: having firmed up his established ties with the CIA, Bush begins an offer of clandestine "political support" for the Nixon Admin. He and his CIA buddies and cronies, having established a solid record of election-rigging overseas, now provide Nixon numerous tools with which to "pad" his already massive popularity. The first foot in the door of this rou te in the GOP, had been made by Bush's father, Prescott Bush as a Senator and close confidante to Eisenhower, who he "pads" for in the East during the 1952 and 1956 Presidential elections. GHW now expands Bush family political influence in Texas by doing a bit of in-state work for LBJ to help arrange a "padded" victory for him in 1964 against Goldwater, whose Jewish roots the Bushs have little sympathy with. Goldwater's hysterical views are already unpopular, but Bush adds to the mix with a few scattered voting machines in key states, manipulating the result in the Electoral College to be even more massive than it would already have been. This gets him in good with Big Oil once and for all.
1969-76: Even though Bush is neck deep in his own potential scandals, these remain unexposed as Nixon gets into hot water over his arrogant and over-confident handling of the Watergate burglary investigation. Bush, by escaping, unscathed, from that scandal, becomes one of the GOP's "bright spots". Nixon, having won a three-way race plurality, is then offered the opportunity for the "padded" Electoral victory in 1972 by the Bush/CIA crony group. Intervening in Democratic Party situations on numerous occasions, including the overlooking of a pre-incident police report on the shooter of George Wallace and the removal of a  road sign at Chappaquiddick, MA, Nixon's other operatives derail the Democrats' most powerful candidates. He then says "bring in Bush--he'll do anything for our cause" and proceeds to use his offer of a padded Electoral College to make himself appear politically invulnerable, hoping to thereby intimidate the Democrats as they investigate the by-then already exposed Watergate burglary and its direct ties to him.
1977-81: Having been unable  to save the Ford Administration from the post-Watergate scandal election defeat from his overseas post as Ambassador to China, Bush moves into position to use his CIA connections to defeat President Carter's re-election bid. As the Iran hostage crisis heats up, Bush meets with William Casey to arrange the "underground" meeting with Iranian and with Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
 Using Kissinger-esque "carrot and stick" methodology, in which they move the "dime" by pointing out that, if the hostages are released too soon, before their election victory, they will allow their "man" Saddam Hussein, (Bush family ties to whom go back to the April 1941 pro-Axis coup attempt of Saddam's uncle Khayrallah), to attack Iran with heavier weaponry. Saddam later blackmails the Bushs with this connection. They first abstain from taking him from power, instead giving him more of what he wants in his war with Iran --and then, initially, also preserving his reign even after defeating him in the First Gulf War. Ultimately, however, with repeated blackmail, they have to give up on further "appeasement" and Bush moves--as his father's associates before him during WW2 had moved--to eliminate Saddam, which he does through his son, W., after another rigged election in 2000. This has the multiple effects (just as it would have when attempted against Hitler), of putting investigators off the trail, eliminating the dictator's further blackmail potential, and destroying past evidence of big money having been made from the horrid actions of the dictator. Bush also plants George Will of ABC News in a strategic position to steal Carter's debate briefing books.
1981-1993: Bush, as technically the VP, acts immediately in January 1981 to have National Security Directives signed by Reagan to ensure he has unprecedented powers as a Vice-President at the National Security end. Having arranged Carter's defeat, partly via the "October Surprise" hostage deal and mostly through the newly-introduced "Sequoia" voting systems in numerous states, Bush is anxious to cover his remaining secrets from WW2 and distrusts Reagan. A Bush family associates shoots and disables Reagan, and gets Reagan out of the way of Bush's plans. However, a disputed National Security Directive--NSDD1--continues to stand out like a sore thumb, because there were two versions of it in Reagan's briefcase at the time of his shooting: one from Bush, one from Secretary of State Alexander Haig, relating to who has control of the "red phone" to the Kremlin in the short-run few minutes after the shooting and disabling of the President and before the swearing in of the Vice-President as President. Bush's Directive maintains that this power logistically goes to the Vice-President automatically, but Haig counters that the State Department holds such power because the usage of nuclear weapons impinges on treaty obligations. It's yet another interesting coincidence, that this Directive, like Bush's WW2 carrier log, remains Classified for an extraordinary period of time. 1984: Convenient deaths, such as that of Senator "Scoop" Jackson of an inexplicably unanticipated "heart attack" and the defeat of Conservative Independent Harry Byrd's successor in Virginia Senate race in a three-way race, allow Reagan to gain a razor thin majority in the Senate, precluding congressional investigation of the October Surprise. Meanwhile, Bush adds new "Sequoia" voting systems to numerous states, in order to pad the Electoral Majority for the Reagan/Bush ticket, which is already strongly "projected" victorious by the campaign plants at ABC News--who powerfully influence other networks-- during that time. In May 1984, going into the election, Bush also arranges to use the "Jew room" at NSA to wiretap virtually the entire American Jewish community--a strong bastion of Democratic Party voters and campaign workers. He does this via Britain's MI6, doing an intelligence "swap" in which the US wiretaps Britain's Jews, while Britain wiretaps America's. Bush then "swaps" with the Brits, getting useful and damaging political information to use against the Mondale campaign, on top of the strategic planting of operatives at the news desks of major media, most especially ABC News, which "project" that Reagan/Bush has won the election before polls have even opened-- much less closed-- in numerous states. Apparently there was also at least some effort at ABC at the vote tabulation level, to "pad" Reagan's margin in some states, as I have found data, just in Almanac political figures, which show exaggerated Reagan vote totals in Nevada (for example) where an ABC News tally gave Reagan, alone, nearly as many votes as were cast for all candidates put together in Nevada in 1984. In 1989, GOP political operatives admitted the use, in New Jersey, of "walking around money" paid to black ministers in return for not arranging rides for African-American workers to the polls. In 1989, too, news stories of a "flu out" among voters in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland during the '88 election--which helped ensure Bush's Electoral victory against Dukakis-- turned out to be similar in cause to the story that came out in 2004: that some voting machines, in key minority districts in those states, were locked away, causing long lines to the remaining few voting machines and booths still available in overwhelmingly Democratic precincts. In California, numerous voters complained that their voter registration cards were never activated, so that, when they went to the polls, though they had turned them in months before, they were told that their registrations were still "pending" and not yet usable, thus precluding them from voting. (I experienced this in Texas in 1980, while trying to vote for Liberal Republican/ Independent John Anderson.) At a crucial moment on election night, 1988, Vice-Presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen is handed a note, allegedly directly from Presidential candidate Dukakis, "informing" him that Dukakis plans to concede, but would he please "go first".  Bentsen goes on TV to concede, on the basis of this instruction. Later analysis reveals Bentsen's concession may have cost the Democrats key precincts in New Mexico, western Michigan, and even California, where crucial polling places were still open. Voters were also still in the long lines in PA, IL and MD mentioned above--as well as in long lines in hair close St. Louis, Missouri. These "glitches" cost the Democrats a potential Electoral vote total of over 189 Electoral votes, as compared to the 111 they were awarded. This note to Bentsen is later disavowed by Dukakis himself. Numerous interesting coincidences...all, suggestive of a Bush "padding" effort. This kind of data, also helps to explain the huge gaps in election results at the Presidential level, so often seen in US elections since WW2.
1993-2000: Losing the uncontrollable three way races of 1992 and 1996, the GOP again turns to its last leg strategies: gain as much control of the House as possible via gerrymandering districts and ensuring some majority there, followed by the generation of a massive scandal investigation provoking voter paranoia to win the Senate. Having done that, Clinton is virtually paralyzed in his attempts to investigate previous GOP scandals or even to get meaningful reforms passed. He finds he can build on his Southern base and his ties to the Conservative Independents to get some legislation passed, but much of it is not progressive in nature. Even so, it comes out that Reagan, in 1992, may have voted for Clinton due to his growing questions about the circumstances of the attempt on his life by a person seemingly tied to the Bush family. The attempt to impeach Clinton fails due to lack of evidence. Now, as the 2000 election loomed, it was the turn of his Vice-President, Albert Gore, Jr., former Senator from Tennessee, to stand against Bush's son, George W. Bush, former Gov. of TX.
2000-2007: Bush now arranges his connections in politics to facilitate his son's ascension to power. No longer faced with an uncontrollable three-way race, Bush is able to run his "Sequoia" machines in key western states again. In the meantime, he also uses a new system--computer rigging--to upset the election figures in the state of Florida, resulting in the infamous "Florida recounts." At first, the phenomenon appears confined to one or two counties, but the impact is statewide. However, the GOP-appointed majority on the United States Supreme Court intervenes to shut down the statewide recount then in progress, which appeared to be headed to giving the state to Gore. Without Florida, Gore loses the Electoral College, though he holds a 1/2 millions Popular vote lead.
2004: Having gained control, by one or two votes, of the tie Senate that came into being in 2000, through the conveniently coincidental deaths, first of Mel Carnahan, the Senate candidate from Missouri in 2001, then the Senate candidate from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, in 2002, both from near identical events--plane crashes due to "wing icing," the GOP can preclude investigation of the massive Enron scandal that heavily implicates Bush.It then comes out that "wing icing" can be produced by the CIA--and had been--as a tool to eliminate problem people overseas. Interesting coincidence. Just as the Enron headlines are starting to hit, a terrorist attack on 9/11/2001 rallies the nation to Bush as Commander in Chief. Bush then uses the climate engendered to mount an invasion of Iraq to dethrone the inconvenient, blackmailing dictator there, trumping up "evidence" of nuclear weaponry that doesn't exist, to get Congressional approval of the military operation. This has all been reported elsewhere, but what hasn't been reported elsewhere, is the Bush/CIA election rigging campaign that was instigated upon W's ascension to the White House. Long, impossibly inconvenient voting lines are produced in Ohio and Colorado. In Ohio, locked up voting machines and, in Denver County, Colorado, convenient "power failures" at critical voting precincts in heavily minority areas, result in similar lines. Meanwhile, similar power failures occur in Nevada, New Orleans, Louisiana, Pulaski County/Little Rock, Arkansas, and all over the state of New Mexico; they interfere with voting and, due to the absence of paper backup ballots, allow the rebooting of computers with the potential to produce a changed result or a padded GOP margin. A bogus "voter registration" drive in Democratic precincts in Nevada is actually run by GOP activists in the state. The registrations are destroyed and the voters disenfranchised at the polling places. The weird result is that Kerry, though supposedly trailing in the Popular vote, gets alarmingly close in the Electoral College in Ohio. Even with all the Bush activity, a CNN Exit poll is televised showing Kerry with a significant lead in Ohio. Kerry's lead is alleged to involve provisional ballots that had come into being in the aftermath of the 2000 election. As Kerry and the third parties attempted to get an examination of the results by the Ohio state government, a key figure, the Ohio Secretary of State, announced that there were about half as many provisionals as previous numbers suggested. The inexplicable phenomenon of the "inaccurate" exit polls was never answered scientifically. The only previous examples of such gaps between exit polling and actual results, had happened in third world nations overseas, when it was known the CIA (remember them?) had tampered with results to ensure victory for chosen candidates. As a Bob Dylan title of the '60s once presciently described, the CIA, through the Bushs and others, was "bringing it all back home". American election rigging seemed to have happened--finally, clearly, and, it appeared, demonstrably. Either that, or you have a lot of coincidences to explain.
Yet, the potential to investigate this scandal was precluded as several Democrats in the Senate, who had been seen as popular in statewide polling in several states, found themselves defeated, in the same climate of possibly rigged "Sequoia" voting machines and seemingly inexplicable gaps between poll numbers and election results.
In 2005, in the aftermath of the repeated election irregularities, thousands of ordinary Americans became involved with organizations such as "Black Box voting", to ensure that the states instituted reforms in the voting systems that included paper backup balloting. The seeming result, in 2006, was a victory for the Democrats in the House and Senate, resulting in Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time since 2001.
The Bush star "declined" with massive banking scandals and a resultant Wall Street crash. With their disappearance, elections began to look different: Democrats began to win again, in places they hadn't while the Bushs were active. Now, in the new generation, previous CIA operatives in US politics have also disappeared.
One coincidence, after another. Were the Bushs "marginally more popular with Hispanics" and does this explain their victories in Southwestern states and Florida, as the major media networks so often attempted to explain the phenomenon? If so, why is it in precisely those heavily Hispanic states that so many "power failures" occurred on election days, during the Bush election years?

The Bush family, the Bush elections, the Bush policies and economies-- and the Bush libraries

So now, every major media and political figure is trying to make nice with the Bush family.

And, one of the few members of the Bush consortium I have found non-controversial and admirable, former First Lady Barbara Pierce Bush, has also pulled the family's hat out of the Presidential ring for 2016, apparently, by more or less pulling Jeb Bush out of it, as an adviser to her son.

Barbara was disparaged some over the years by those who saw her as unimaginative or uninquisitive, but I saw no indication she engaged in anything controversial or negative. Her active support of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse was positive in many lives.

That pull-out of Jeb by his mother could be very good news for the Democrats. It tends to get the apparent Bush rigged election equipment and other chicanery borne of the family's long ties to CIA election rigging overseas, out of the picture for 2016, as well. That may mean those of us investigating ongoing manifestations of the CIA/Bush election rigging, may be able to rest easy for awhile, if, indeed, that dimension of Bush political activity hasn't evaporated in its effectiveness, anyway.

Simultaneously, the aging of GHW Bush and the long years intervening since WW2, combined with the length of time I put into the alleged "message to an Admiral" or "message to the Japanese" and the surrounding controversial WW2 activities by Bush family associate, the late Allen Dulles, has inclined me to re-focus my research into other areas.

At the same time, a monstrous new technology has cropped up and is rapidly--so very, very rapidly--becoming an overwhelming threat to our rights, privacy and--ironically, it will turn out--national security: DRONES. I am trying to realize that our government is contemplating the use of these devices in the surveillance of US citizens in the name of preventing terrorism.

The War on Terror has proven to be another step for Big Brother, a new set of powers for surveillance, incarceration, and ...murder of US citizens and others.

This increased power, comes on top of:
 the continuous increase in powers for the Executive branch as manifested in the War Powers Act;
 the increased power, through the Drug War legislation, for Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI and state and local police to do unannounced break-ins, without a search warrant, of suspected drug homes;
increasing authorizations of surveillance of US citizens without court orders, and, perhaps even more disturbing, without specific justifications;
newly authorized incarceration of non-US military persons in US military facilities--and this, without the option of Miranda Rights, presence of an attorney, or court authorization via a specific criminal charge;
the apprehension, detention, and incarceration--without a court order, search order, or arrest warrant-- of persons "suspected" of "terrorist" acts or connections.
And, now, comes this new "power" of this list of "powers" that are all highly-debatable, Constitutionally: the killing of United States citizens by armed, drone aircraft, without notice, without court order, without trial, and without specific charges.

The insufferable quality of this last, I fear, is something most Americans simply do not completely understand. I fear, too, that they may not see that this is only the last in this long list of Federal usurpation, especially at the Executive level, of powers from the other branches of the Federal government, and from the State and local governments.

This, like the story of election rigging related to the Bush family--a story that goes back to the first advent of GHW Bush as CIA Director and even adviser to Nixon--seems about to be "missed" by the Main Stream Media.

 It is a story fraught with import, heavy in its risks to the general public, and still largely ignored by the major television networks and even the print media.

It is as if the media wishes to set it aside for more important things.

I have to say this to my fellows in journalism, at these places, now, before it is TOO LATE: THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT STORY THAN THIS. THERE IS NO SCANDAL WORSE THAN THIS.

As we watch news of how drones have killed foreigners and saved the lives of US pilots in manned aircraft who would otherwise have been assigned to these tasks, we fail to get the true import.
These craft are also murdering United States citizens WITHOUT TRIAL. This, again, is on top of the infamous "rendition" policy of apprehension, incarceration, and even torture of persons not strongly associated with anything except suspicion of terrorism, WITHOUT TRIAL.

The break-ins of US homes WITHOUT SEARCH WARRANT OR NOTICE, is in the name of Drug War. Yet, who sounds more drug-struck, the pot smoker or the fanatic who suspends the Constitution?

The previous Federal interventions against state and local governments, had also had one good face after another, including civil rights, Affirmative Action on minority rights, and the  lengths of state election recounts. All this had been done, over several years, to ensure that the good thing triumphs through Federal intervention over unenlightened state and local governments and corporations.

In the end, this rather horrifying use of drones to kill US citizens without trial, coupled with surveillance without notice or court order, and the power to detain and imprison US citizens without trial, is only the last in this long series of Federal interventions.

Here's the kicker: we can argue that all these previous incursions worked, since they ended up not eroding Constitutional rights. They helped us (didn't they) apprehend terrorists (did they?). They helped us end illegal drug use (did they? Drug use stats seem to have skyrocketed.) They helped us kill terrorists overseas (did they: recall all those body bags that were brought in by US forces in South Vietnam, containing alleged "Viet Cong", and only later determined to be, often, just ordinary citizens gunned down in cold blood to fill the body count?)

Because the built-in weakness of ALL these "without trial" methodologies, is that you really DON'T KNOW if THAT is what you accomplish, because the BEST method that has ever been devised to deal with determining whether you got the job done, by getting the RIGHT person, is PRECLUDED by these methods: the TRIAL.

Having already killed persons, the Government comes forward and says, "they were terrorists." How do we know, if there was no TRIAL?

NOW do you begin to grasp why some people, on both the Left and the Right, are starting to talk about Big Brother? IF they come and kill you, tomorrow, with one or these drones, what are they going to be able to say about you?