Sedona scene taken by friend and fellow memo reader.
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Health Alert for Men:If you are taking the Viagra pill, make sure it says"Made in USA"!
We do not want the Russians meddling in our erections!
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
- Groucho Marx
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.
- Jimmy Durante
We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.
- Will Rogers
By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.
- Billy Crystal
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Cuomo was never great. (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Bob Livingston equates business with government and believes both are in cahoots to create a brand of American Fascism. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The local newspaper wrote a self-congratulatory editorial today and I sent this in response:
"When the mass media, and that includes the local print folks, come into court with clean hands then they will be able to re-claim the fact that they were once the nation's ombudsman.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
1)
Big business has and will promote every ideology and philosophy known to man to disguise its madness for profits and government favors. All governments are fronts for monopoly capitalism (fascism).America is not a capitalist system by any stretch. This is obvious to any sober person.
Government benefits big business. Big business benefits government. There's a revolving door between top brass in the multinational corporations and the halls of power in the District of Criminals. They run and populate the president's cabinet offices and the alphabet soup regulatory agencies. (For evidence, go to the membership roster of the Council on Foreign Relations and see how many names you recognize from government, and study the bios of those you don't.) In return, government policy is crafted and designed to enrich and favor big business.The Big Tech companies are no exception and, in fact, prove the rule. Big Tech got/gets massive infusions from the national treasury — and are also government contractors — and in return they scarf up copious amounts of data and other information on their users and supply it to big government; their promises of data security notwithstanding.
With the corporate propaganda media losing its control over the flow of information, Big Tech is stepping in. And it's partnering with the MSM and the power brokers who operate behind the scenes in an attempt to stifle any thought that falls outside the mainstream.
It's doing this not just with government's blessing, but with the threat of regulation or something more, as Communist Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut showed with his implied threat via Twitter.
When a major U.S. politician states that something "must" happen, then there is the implied threat that if "something" doesn't happen then government will respond with "something" more.
Senate democrats are already circulating plans to take over the internet and impose all manner of privacy-invading and speech-stifling laws.
Remember, we told you that everything that is public policy is politically correct, and everything that is politically correct is public policy. It's how governments ensure conformity and control.
CNN, the Communist News Network that is a purveyor of much of today's fake news, overtly advocated for the removal of Alex Jones' websites and podcasts from technology platforms in an attempt to drive him out of business. Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Pinterest, Spotify, Stitcher, YouPorn, LinkedIn and MailChimp all obliged and banned Infowars last week. This week, the comment platform Disqus (which we use on Personal Liberty®, for now) and the video platform Vimeo joined in the purge.
CNN — known for cutting off guests being interviewed live when they venture into subjects contrary to the official narrative — claims to support free speech. But when Newseum, the museum of news media established "to increase public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment" began selling President Donald Trump's MAGA hats and t-shirts with the words "Fake News" in the CNN-style font on them, CNN sparked a social justice mob response that forced the museum to pull the items from its gift shop and issue an apology.
Other media outlets have joined in on the pile-on against Infowars and other deliverers of alternative news, claiming that "hate speech" (a nebulous, meaningless term) and "racism" (a term that was so overused in the Obama years that it, too, has lost its meaning) are "unacceptable" and have no place in a civilized society. In response, the media and tech giants have assumed the role of the government's thought and speech police, with government sanction.
But it's not just Infowars and so-called "alt-right" (another meaningless, fabricated term) media organs being removed from Big Tech; libertarians andso-called "alt-left" and far left sites are beginning to be purged.
No less than the U.S. Supreme Court, in Matal v. Tam, affirmed there is no such thing as "hate speech":
And:
The media and leftist elites love to call Trump a fascist, but in doing so they are engaging in Orwellian-style newspeak. Nationalism, crudeness or racism (not that we believe Trump is a racist) do not make one fascist. However, banning contrarian thought (21st century book burning) and beating people into submission — physically and verbally — are fascist tactics. The fascists of the left-wing terror group Antifa are far more fascist in their behavior and philosophy than Trump.
As historian Michael Leeden writes for Forbes:
This newspeak is dangerous to liberty.
Mind control through government propaganda has overshadowed any physical threat to our physical security. We are already in a psychological jail at the mercy of the propaganda ministry.
This is what is meant by benevolent totalitarianism. America has German-style fascism, just without the jackboots.
You don't have to know that you are a slave to be one. Military occupation is no longer necessary (visibly). Total war goes on against the people all the time. Remember that corporations are also engaged in a corporate repeal of the 2nd Amendment, again with government blessing if not government sanction (see, Obama's Operation Chokepoint).
Few people ever come to the realism that big government in cooperation with big business (fascism) work together to perpetually extract labor, wealth and liberty from the people.
The key to this conspiracy is to keep the people dependent on the government under what is euphemistically called "public policy."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Bob Livingston equates business with government and believes both are in cahoots to create a brand of American Fascism. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The local newspaper wrote a self-congratulatory editorial today and I sent this in response:
"When the mass media, and that includes the local print folks, come into court with clean hands then they will be able to re-claim the fact that they were once the nation's ombudsman.
Until then, they need to look in the mirror and wipe their bias off their face. They have become nothing but pursuers of entertainment, not objective news reporters."
When an entire industry drum beats against you, an entire political party positions itself to stop your progress and senior members of an entire nation's intelligence agencies gang up with the intent to defeat you from becoming president and then everyone attacks you for defending yourself, in the manner you have chosen, even an insane person has to become disgusted.
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Let government do it all, own it all, screw it all up and vote for Warren. Her and Bernie's definition of heaven is hellish. (See 3 below.)
Dick
1)
Cuomo: America was ‘never that great’
ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted Donald Trump during a bill-signing ceremony on Wednesday, twisting the president’s signature slogan as he made a point about the need for greater women’s equality.
“We’re not going to make America great again — it was never that great,” said Cuomo, a Democrat seeking a third term. “We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women — 51 percent of our population — is gone and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed.”
Cuomo's remarks quickly became national news, and shortly after 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever issued a statement tempering the governor’s earlier comments.
"The governor believes America is great and that her full greatness will be fully realized when every man, woman, and child has full equality. America has not yet reached its maximum potential,” Lever said. "When the president speaks about making America great again — going back in time — he ignores the pain so many endured and that we suffered from slavery, discrimination, segregation, sexism and marginalized women's contributions. The governor believes that when everyone is fully included and everyone is contributing to their maximum potential, that is when America will achieve maximum greatness."
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who was in Saratoga Springs for a GOP fundraiser, tweeted that Cuomo “changes his views quicker than Omarosa," referencing Omarosa Manigault-Newman, the fired Trump staffer who has written a tell-all about her time in the administration.
Cuomo's comments came two days after Trump, a fellow Queens native, publicly attacked him for the first time since becoming president. Trump said Cuomo promised he would never challenge him for the presidency in 2020; for much of 2017, the governor conspicuously did not attack the president by name. (A Cuomo spokesman denied any such promise was made.)
That changed this year, as Cuomo faces a Democratic primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon and as Trump pushed tax and immigration policies that the governor says are antithetical to New York values.
Cuomo’s basic argument against Nixon is that New York needs an experienced leader as it fights Trump. He’s clearly welcoming a fight with the president, who had a rating of 38 percent favorable-59 percent unfavorable in a June poll conducted by the Siena Research Institute.
Republicans immediately fired back at Cuomo.
“America, with its imperfections, has always been great,” said Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, the GOP gubernatorial nominee. “Our people, our principles, and our promises have been a beacon light to the world for 242 years and counting. This governor is so determined to distract voters from his failed policies and corrupted administration that he’s willing to dismiss the steady, determined march of the American people, making and remaking the greatness of America. Mr. Cuomo owes the nation an apology. He should be ashamed of himself.”
On Twitter, Cuomo’s top adviser, Melissa DeRosa, said, “MAGA is a dog whistle.”
Cuomo’s speech came at a government-sponsored event at a community center on Manhattan's Lower East Side where he was to sign a bill, NY A6823 (17R), that makes it easier to prosecute people for forcing children into prostitution.
Cuomo said Trump and his supporters on issues of immigration were “the enemy,” and he faulted the president’s policies of separating children from parents who enter the United States unlawfully and his equivocation about white supremacists who rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
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2) American fascism
By Bob Livingston
There is a silent marriage between big government and big business. It's called fascism, or was in Italy. We have much the same thing in America.
Big business has and will promote every ideology and philosophy known to man to disguise its madness for profits and government favors. All governments are fronts for monopoly capitalism (fascism).America is not a capitalist system by any stretch. This is obvious to any sober person.
Government benefits big business. Big business benefits government. There's a revolving door between top brass in the multinational corporations and the halls of power in the District of Criminals. They run and populate the president's cabinet offices and the alphabet soup regulatory agencies. (For evidence, go to the membership roster of the Council on Foreign Relations and see how many names you recognize from government, and study the bios of those you don't.) In return, government policy is crafted and designed to enrich and favor big business.The Big Tech companies are no exception and, in fact, prove the rule. Big Tech got/gets massive infusions from the national treasury — and are also government contractors — and in return they scarf up copious amounts of data and other information on their users and supply it to big government; their promises of data security notwithstanding.
With the corporate propaganda media losing its control over the flow of information, Big Tech is stepping in. And it's partnering with the MSM and the power brokers who operate behind the scenes in an attempt to stifle any thought that falls outside the mainstream.
It's doing this not just with government's blessing, but with the threat of regulation or something more, as Communist Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut showed with his implied threat via Twitter.
When a major U.S. politician states that something "must" happen, then there is the implied threat that if "something" doesn't happen then government will respond with "something" more.
Senate democrats are already circulating plans to take over the internet and impose all manner of privacy-invading and speech-stifling laws.
Remember, we told you that everything that is public policy is politically correct, and everything that is politically correct is public policy. It's how governments ensure conformity and control.
CNN, the Communist News Network that is a purveyor of much of today's fake news, overtly advocated for the removal of Alex Jones' websites and podcasts from technology platforms in an attempt to drive him out of business. Facebook, YouTube, Apple, Pinterest, Spotify, Stitcher, YouPorn, LinkedIn and MailChimp all obliged and banned Infowars last week. This week, the comment platform Disqus (which we use on Personal Liberty®, for now) and the video platform Vimeo joined in the purge.
CNN — known for cutting off guests being interviewed live when they venture into subjects contrary to the official narrative — claims to support free speech. But when Newseum, the museum of news media established "to increase public understanding of the importance of a free press and the First Amendment" began selling President Donald Trump's MAGA hats and t-shirts with the words "Fake News" in the CNN-style font on them, CNN sparked a social justice mob response that forced the museum to pull the items from its gift shop and issue an apology.
Other media outlets have joined in on the pile-on against Infowars and other deliverers of alternative news, claiming that "hate speech" (a nebulous, meaningless term) and "racism" (a term that was so overused in the Obama years that it, too, has lost its meaning) are "unacceptable" and have no place in a civilized society. In response, the media and tech giants have assumed the role of the government's thought and speech police, with government sanction.
But it's not just Infowars and so-called "alt-right" (another meaningless, fabricated term) media organs being removed from Big Tech; libertarians andso-called "alt-left" and far left sites are beginning to be purged.
No less than the U.S. Supreme Court, in Matal v. Tam, affirmed there is no such thing as "hate speech":
| [The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express "the thought that we hate." |
And:
| A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an "egregious form of content discrimination," which is "presumptively unconstitutional." … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government's benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society. |
The media and leftist elites love to call Trump a fascist, but in doing so they are engaging in Orwellian-style newspeak. Nationalism, crudeness or racism (not that we believe Trump is a racist) do not make one fascist. However, banning contrarian thought (21st century book burning) and beating people into submission — physically and verbally — are fascist tactics. The fascists of the left-wing terror group Antifa are far more fascist in their behavior and philosophy than Trump.
As historian Michael Leeden writes for Forbes:
| This (calling Trump a fascist) is not a productive discussion. It has very little to do with fascism itself. For the most part, we hear about style, not ideas or ideology. We hear a lot about vulgarity, about the enthusiasm of crowds, and about threats to basic freedoms. All serious subjects, to be sure, but by making them reiterations of fascism (all the while saying they aren't really fascism), we yank them from their proper context and make proper understanding of both fascism and our current crisis impossible. Italian fascism, which came to power in 1922, was a war ideology. They argued that the country should be governed by the heroes of the First World War. The fascists fought violent socialist bands in the streets of Italy's major cities (not so much a doctrinal conflict as a reaction to the Socialists' opposition to the war). The street violence was not a monopoly of either fascists or Socialists, but characterized the whole society. Indeed, it characterized the whole continent. Remember that the Bolsheviks had seized power in Moscow, and were calling for global revolution. The Italian left was inspired by this revolutionary event, and fascism was in part a response to this threat. |
This newspeak is dangerous to liberty.
Mind control through government propaganda has overshadowed any physical threat to our physical security. We are already in a psychological jail at the mercy of the propaganda ministry.
This is what is meant by benevolent totalitarianism. America has German-style fascism, just without the jackboots.
You don't have to know that you are a slave to be one. Military occupation is no longer necessary (visibly). Total war goes on against the people all the time. Remember that corporations are also engaged in a corporate repeal of the 2nd Amendment, again with government blessing if not government sanction (see, Obama's Operation Chokepoint).
Few people ever come to the realism that big government in cooperation with big business (fascism) work together to perpetually extract labor, wealth and liberty from the people.
The key to this conspiracy is to keep the people dependent on the government under what is euphemistically called "public policy."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Elizabeth Warren’s Batty Plan to Nationalize . . . Everything
Wholesale seizure and control of private property? With 2020 in her sights, Warren woos the hard Left.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has one-upped socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: She proposes to nationalize every major business in the United States of America. If successful, it would constitute the largest seizure of private property in human history.
Warren’s proposal is dishonestly called the “Accountable Capitalism Act.” Accountable to whom?you might ask. That’s a reasonable question. The answer is — as it always is — accountable to politicians, who desire to put the assets and productivity of private businesses under political discipline for their own selfish ends. It is remarkable that people who are most keenly attuned to the self-interest of CEOs and shareholders and the ways in which that self-interest influences their decisions apparently believe that members of the House, senators, presidents, regulators, Cabinet secretaries, and agency chiefs somehow are liberated from self-interest when they take office through some kind of miracle of transcendence.
Under Senator Warren’s proposal, no business with more than $1 billion in revenue would be permitted to legally operate without permission from the federal government. The federal government would then dictate to these businesses the composition of their boards, the details of internal corporate governance, compensation practices, personnel policies, and much more. Naturally, their political activities would be restricted, too. Senator Warren’s proposal entails the wholesale expropriation of private enterprise in the United States, and nothing less. It is unconstitutional, unethical, immoral, irresponsible, and — not to put too fine a point on it — utterly bonkers.
It is also cynical. Senator Warren is many things: a crass opportunist, intellectually bankrupt, personally vapid, a peddler of witless self-help books, etc. But she is not stupid. She knows that this is a go-nowhere proposition, that she will be spared by the Republican legislative majority from the ignominy that would ensue from the wholehearted pursuit of this daft program. It is in reality only a means of staking out for purely strategic reasons the most radical corner for her 2020 run at the Democratic presidential nomination. The Democratic party in 2018, like the Republican primary electorate in 2016, is out for blood and desirous of confrontation. So Senator Warren is running this red flag up the flagpole to see who salutes.
To propose such a thing for sincere reasons would be ghastly stupidity. To propose this program for narrowly self-serving political reasons is the sort of thing that would end a political career in a sane and self-respecting state, which Massachusetts plainly is not and has not been for some time.
When
To those on the left who look at Senator Warren’s proposal and think that giving the government a stronger whip hand over American businesses is just the ticket, I would like to present four questions: Who is the president of these United States? Who is the majority leader in the Senate? Who is the speaker of the House? How would you evaluate the composition of the Supreme Court, either as it stands or after President Donald Trump has the opportunity to nominate another justice or two? The power you give the federal government will be there during Republican administrations, too. Any future populist demagogue who finds his way into the White House will have access to the same power. No one should be trusted with that kind of power.
And nobody who seeks that kind of power should be trusted with any power at all.
It is worth keeping in mind that the fabulous goose was slaughtered not in spite of the golden eggs but because of them. Politicians are covetous. When the owners of Apple wish to hold on to their own after-tax earnings, they are denounced as greedy. (Apple’s shareholders are corporately the largest taxpayer in the world.) When Elizabeth Warren wants to seize those earnings for her own use, what is that? It is covetousness, which is what you get when you have greed compounded with envy. Senator Warren, a former Sunday-school teacher, apparently has a keen appreciation for the vices that lurk in the human heart, and she intends to leverage them to her benefit.
Another thing about these kinds of proposals: They are, at heart, acts of cowardice. There are politicians who wish to provide benefits to certain constituents and who would like those benefits to be paid for by other parties who are politically disfavored. There is an easy way to do that: Tax x to subsidize y. The problem with doing that is embarrassment. Politicians such as Senator Warren lack the courage to go to the American electorate and say: “We wish to provide these benefits, and they will cost an extra $3 trillion a year, which we will pay for by doubling taxes.” Why spend the money to subsidize, say, health insurance, when you can just pass rules that make businesses do the subsidizing for you? It’s a way to spend money without putting the expenditures on a budget line. It treats the productive capacity of the United States as a herd of dairy cows to be milked by Senator Warren et al. at their convenience. And, of course, Senator Warren and her colleagues get to decide how the milk gets distributed, too.
One wonders why American businesses put up with it.
They do not have to. Not really.
It is a fairly easy thing for an established American business to move its corporate domicile to some other country, as with all those corporate inversions in the pharmaceutical industry that gave the Obama administration the willies a few years ago. It is also a fairly easy thing for a new business being founded by Americans to incorporate in some other country from the beginning. There is no insurmountable reason for, say, Microsoft or Altria (formerly Philip Morris) to be domiciled in the United States. Silicon Valley’s competitive edge comes from people, and people are mobile.
Nearly half of the total sales of the S&P 500 businesses come from overseas customers. Many big U.S. manufacturers such as Caterpillar get more than half of their sales from abroad. Exxon, the target of a political jihad being conducted by Senator Warren’s party, gets more than half of its revenue from overseas sales. You can serve the growing Asian markets as easily from Singapore as from California or Virginia. Watching American cities scurry around to prostrate themselves before Jeff Bezos (pbuh) in the hopes of attracting the new Amazon campus has been amusing. Imagine Apple or Google doing that in a global search for a new home. Fanciful? Yes.
Fanciful today.
Recep
Businesses historically have chosen to locate in the United States for a number of reasons: It was long the world’s largest market, and businesses had faith in American law and the American dollar. It’s still a big market, and the dollar is still the world’s favorite currency. But if American law or American lawmakers are going to treat profit-seeking enterprises as an Enemy of the People — Zurich is pretty nice. Lots of places are. There are a lot of big American businesses with targets painted on their backs, and those that do not already have a Plan B are doing their shareholders a disservice.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hugo Chávez, Huey Long: The rogues’ gallery of those who sought to fortify their political power by bullying businesses is long, and it is sickening. Senator Warren now nominates herself to that list, at least in her aspiration. It is not an honorable aspiration.
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