The End of the Trail, by James Earle Fraser (1894)
It has been more than a year since I have made a post, other than updating an existing Page occasionally. The reasons are several, including a long nasty battle with cancer, and I apologize to all of you who follow my posts and me on this website for what I may have to say about the state of the world and its many controversial facets.
For nearly the entire year I have been fighting cancer, and, finally, after many months of chemotherapy and other treatment, as of late November, I have been pronounced cancer-free, but it has left me mentally and physically exhausted with weaknesses of my heart and in my soul that I am now rapidly overcoming. I staked my life against the disease and after many battles, I won the war. I need to tell the story, both for my own benefit and for those who want or need to know more about the true darkness and destruction cancer causes even if it is somehow sometimes defeated over time.
I am presently writing an account of my battles with this monstrous terrifying disease that covered many months (some before I knew I had it, but I did know there was something seriously wrong). I will publish the story here in the form of episodes broken down in time and issue, There are so many of us, including me until I experienced its deadly malicious forcible ability to take over your own body and mind for its own purposes and use you for its sole desires and reasons. Cancer is a war of wills, and without the proper medical care and personal determination to never give in to its murderous physical and, yes, mental attacks on you, you will lose the war. I was lucky enough to have the excellent oncological and other medical care that was necessary, along with a personal constitution to never let it defeat me.
In a few days I will be publishing the initial post to my website. I invite your comments, insights and any corroboration you may have from your own experience or any related or associated connection to this insidious disease that kills so many of us, including helpless innocent children who’ve never had a chance to know what life is like without it.
I hope you all have enjoyed a merry Christmas and are blessed with a happy New Year in 2021! ~llaw
This is an update to my original post in September concerning critical questions about the future of America and the world, which is now looking more perilous today than ever before. Bolton is gone now, but he is not silenced, and Trump, along with Pompeo, and probably Pence and Barr as well, have implicated themselves in one of the most incredible political scandals in the history, not only of America, but world history. Even Shakespeare’s tales pale in comparison.
So what will the “Stable Genius” with his “great and unmatched wisdom” do next now that he is solely responsible for Syrian genocide, betraying our Kurdish allies, allowing the Turkish invasion of territory they want to steal from northern Syria, and, yes, freeing ISIS, leaving our American and Kurdish troops suddenly caught between two enemies? Not to mention that his bonehead order includes the possibility of America’s military losing control of fifty nuclear bombs located at a military base in Turkey.
Russia and Turkey are the only two countries on the planet who are pleased with Trump’s traitorous act of sedition against America’s Democracy, but both Syria and Iran are smiling. So I have to ask Republican Americans one more time: Whose side do you believe our mentally ill and dimwitted American President is on? Former Secretary of State Tillerson was absolutely correct when he called Trump a “fucking moron.” Trump must be forcibly removed from office NOW!
The attached hyperlinked interview by the highly respected think tank “Foreign Policy in Focus” of Lawrence Wilkerson, (the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and currently the Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Government and Public Policy in the Government Department of the College of William and Mary) by Emanuel Pastreich, (who is the director of the Asia Institute (asia-institute.org) and a senior scholar at FPIF, is a detailed and desperate warning to America and the world about what has already happened to our great experiment of living in a democratic republic and what the rapid chameleon-like metamorphosis of our government into a fascist empire led, for now, by a moronic sociopathic amoral and cruel narcissist who is supported by the lazy and apathetic incompetent and compliant political leaders in other branches of our government who have have enabled Trump and, to some degree, several presidents going back to and including Reagan, gradually consolidating power around the sitting president and his executive branch. Trump is taking full advantage of this deplorable situation during his presidency, leaving the power of the congress and the judiciary reduced to soggy milquetoast at this stage. Yet Trump, if allowed to remain in office, still has nearly a year and a half to completely seal his autocratic deal.
We are faced at this very moment with the disturbing concept of changing the meaning of a “dystopian world” from one of the fictional fantasy of novels into a catastrophic world-ending reality. Reading this clearly spoken, straightforward and pointedly honest interview will explain exactly why the future of global death and destruction of authors’ imaginations today, may become the horrible reality of tomorrow.
Nuclear energy and bombs are not subjects for the faint of heart, nor are they to be discussed lightly as if we are discussing the results of the last NFL football game on Monday night. The very idea of world-wide nuclear proliferation is like a sixth extinction death wish.
The United States, China, and Russia already have enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet, and then there are the stationary but prolific nuclear power plants around the world that can easily be turned into in-place weapons of mass destruction through little more than cyber attacks among warring nations. Like all powerful human concepts and inventions once believed to be eternally used for good and beneficial objectives, nuclear power plants (and even their waste depositories) can easily be used for catastrophic evil destructive purposes in times of human dissension. Those times are staring us right in our faces right now.
Three men in the present White House have taken control of our war powers, which were once constitutionally controlled by congress. These men do not have America’s–nor the world’s–best interests at heart, and they also despise the concept of diplomacy and policy agreements among nations, removing America from almost every international pact designed to protect and preserve the sovereignty among our allies around the world.
These three men, Donald Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, (who lead our nation’s entire national security operation) are busy making unilateral decisions that affect our military strategy throughout the world, and they are all three incompetent, capitalistic, war mongering fanatics who would like nothing better than to start a war with Iran as soon as tomorrow. But in lieu of that, until the time is right, they are in league with every major defense contractor in our country to expand our already bulging nuclear arsenal.
What this maniacal approach to our national security does is panic the rest of the world’s nations and shoves down our collective throats a new and unimaginatively colossal international nuclear arms race among world powers as well as every nation on earth that has never felt they needed nuclear bombs before because the concept of “nuclear restraint” was protection enough. That concept has now been shot all to hell by America and Russia.
There is historical archaeological evidence that humans may have blown up the world once before with nuclear power, and of course, we never learn from our past mistakes, but even if that never happened before, we ought to understand that once is once too often.
H. L. Mencken on electing a moron for president (1920)
Quoting H.L. Mencken from way back in 1920, “Downright fools and complete narcissistic morons,” like Trump, et al, just don’t get it. How long are we going to allow this insanity to continue? Because if we don’t stop it today it will be too late tomorrow. ~llaw.
To understand what Trump is in the process of doing to America and the world, read the referenced must-read article here.
The Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California.
I have begun serious research on my first extensive work of journalistic non-fiction, disguised as fiction until it is published, about the immense dangers of nuclear energy production and those plants related to the reality of adversarial cyber attacks to the power grids where nuclear energy is produced and distributed, especially as weapons of mass destruction in times of war. I have recently posted a blog article here, concerning my fears about this vital problem with nuclear energy and its vulnerability to such lethal attacks, titled “Nuclear Power Plants and Their Relevance to Nuclear War“. The draft title of the book is fittingly called “El Diablo”. ~llaw
A child walks past graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, on the walls of a bar in the old town in Vilnius, Lithuania, Saturday, May 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
The more we allow Trump to get away with Constitutional non-compliance (like with the emoluments clause ignoring court orders and subpoenas, and violating his oath of office every day) and continues to run roughshod over everything else in our American way, the less chance we have of saving our democracy. Congress must quit dragging its feet NOW, before it’s too late. Trump’s stonewalling, refusing to comply with congressional and court subpoenas, creating inane frivolous lawsuits, all serve to intentionally extend Congress’s foot-dragging and we are fast running out of time to get rid of him.
By the time the 2020 election rolls around, just a short year-and-a-half away, he may well have broken so many laws and violated the Constitution so successfully that he will be in a position to not even allow an election, or just as bad, refuse to leave office if he is defeated at the polls, and uses his authoritarian “presidential” powers to force America into a civil war and WWIII at the same time. He is already searching for a conflict with Iran in the Middle East, which could be only a bombing run away from starting a global war.
Of course that’s a worst case scenario, but looking back at the severe damage he’s already wrought upon our country and got off scot-free with over the past two-and-a-half years, and with the complicit Justice Department saying he cannot be indicted for his crimes, no doubt gives him and Putin, the GOP, et al, the power to simply bully their way into entirely destroying our American way of life within the next year-and-a-half.
I, for one, personally refuse to live under the shadow of a dictator, and life in Trump’s version of America is more than bad enough already. ~llaw
The remains of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The radiation leakage has now been covered by a stainless steel roof, but the city of Chernobyl will essentially remain a ghost town for thousands of years.
If you missed the first three episodes of “Chernobyl” on HBO, at least try to find a way to watch the last one, which aired tonight. I am sure it will be replayed for several days or weeks. Watch it if you can.
And then you will know that nuclear power is not safe, contrary to what the industry and our government would have you believe. Humans, intentionally or not, can interfere, mistakenly or deliberately, with anything that has lethal power, whether for good or for evil, and all nuclear plants are as dangerous and life-threatening as any nuclear bomb. They are a part of America’s power grid system and grid systems can be tampered with and attacked by ideologically or politically opposed foes in today’s cyber warfare world. It’s not just elections we have to worry about.
The midwest and eastern United States are dangerously infested with nuclear power plants.
Having spent nearly two decades as an administrator in the production end of the nuclear industry–uranium mining and milling, including a knowledge of enrichment fundamentals–I recently began writing a critical book about the serious international problem the world has with nuclear power plants and their strategic relationship to nuclear bombs, especially as the problem applies to the possibility of imminent nuclear war. I hope to finish it and find a worthy publisher before the crucial year of 2020 begins. ~llaw
Mueller needs to personally explain to the American people why his report came to the conclusions it did and exactly what its intended purpose was, if not to indict Trump, either via the judicial system or through congress, what the hell is its objective?.
I, for one, would also like to know if he was ordered by Barr (through Trump) to conclude his report prematurely, what is missing from the report (eg the counter intelligence information and conclusions), and why an unredacted report is not being given to congress as they have demanded. ~llaw
The House Democrats are being far too polite, patient and subservient toward Trump’s, Barr’s, and McConnell’s gaslighting and stonewalling over the Mueller Report and the White House’s blanket refusal to honor subpoenas, court orders, our Constitution, and the “Rule of Law”, which makes the Dems look tentative and unsure of their Constitutional mandate to defend America against autocratic tyrants like TraitorTrump and his imperialist master Putin.
You and I may understand the Democrat’s caution and patience, but the general public and voter looks at their procrastination and apparent lack of anger or urgency, including hesitant use of their new-found power from the 2018 election’s political mandate to rapidly ameliorate a bad situation, as essentially offering credence to Trump’s claim of a ‘witchhunt’.
Then too, every day lost by following this courteous protocol and court procedures that would be proper during normal times with a normal president is critical in dealing with this dangerous criminal Trumpian organization that, for now at least, serves as anoter propaganda weapon for Trump and his mob, including Fox News and their right-wing conspiratorial affiliates, Russian cyber attacks, and the complicit GOP.
The mainstream media is only just now beginning to realize that these are not normal times, and they, too, will soon react negatively, adding more fire to the argument against the Dem’s perceived lack of concern and aggression to diligently expedite official impeachment investigations, charges, and proceedings, making it even more difficult, if not impossible to sway enough GOP senators to vote to impeach Trump.
Congressional Democrats cannot continue to bow to Barr’s and Trump’s feigned authority any longer or our government “by and for the people” will soon be nothing more than a sad and distant memory. ~llaw
Two recently recognized and extremely important global related issues with seriously concerning elements and rapidly encroaching ecologic disasters are embedded as links in this post. First, If plankton provides nearly 70% of the oxygen that humans breathe and if all the fish in the sea depend on it as a food source, this first story seems more like the beginning of a dystopian novel than a scientific article. We need to keep a close eye on this dangerous development, and hope that a cause is quickly found and that it can be promptly corrected.
Or will we simply go on treating our environmental crises with a yawn and a shrug? Our ecological and environmental world is rapidly coming apart at the seams, including human apathy and neglect, mostly resulting from economic or financial greed, or “Ecocide” as described in this second important article, but also in a large part from a general attitude of denial and knowledge. ~llaw (12/23/18)
Two years of hell has taken its toll on our flag, our country and you and me. . .
The difficult problem of removing Trump, et al, from the White House presently lies solely on the hunched shoulders of our elected representatives in congress. Until they are somehow persuaded to listen to the people, there is little chance of removing Trump from office unless Special Counsel Mueller and the judicial system indict him and find him guilty of his many atrocious felonies, and sentence him to prison.
The second possibility of booting Trump from office via political impeachment won’t work because the Republicans will not vote to impeach him and there are not enough Democrats to fill the Republican void. Also, there is no guarantee that impeaching Trump will result in removing him from office.
The third possibility is that Trump will resign, and that may well happen very soon. The pressure on him (that he has brought solely upon himself despite his constant whining and tweeting otherwise) is closing in around him, his foolhardy children and other sycophants, and those facts may well do him in. The incoming Democratic House of Representatives will pile subpoenas upon subpoenas of investigative hearings upon investigating hearings on him, as well as the whole complicit rest of them, until Trump simply cannot lie his way out of his corner any longer, bringing to bear immense public pressure, a burden that even Trump, with his delusional egomaniacal mind, cannot cope with any longer.
Accordingly, in my opinion. a combination of Mueller justice, Democratic politics, and public pressure will prevail in ousting Trump, by resignation, from the presidency sometime in the first half of 2019, and Trump may very well still wind up in prison where he no doubt belongs. ~llaw (12/19/18)
This political cartoon in the Reno Gazette Journal this morning did my old heart good! If the election wasn’t a high-tide blue wave for Democrats, it certainly was a tsunami of a “Me Too!” blue wave as liberal women “grabbed” congressional seats away from cowardly old Republican male incumbents who were deathly afraid of Trump.
Trump should be running scared from now on. He knows the Resistance will force him to pay the price for his white supremacy nationalism, bigotry, racism, xenophobia and misogyny ~llaw
