A Few Questions

She said a lot there, but everyone is asking the same things here in the United States.

What I’m getting from this is disturbing because it seems that nobody knows what the U.S. is allowed to do, what our constitution provides for or forbids, what the UCMJ allows or what constitutes criminal actions, and equally important, what international law says about combat actions in international water during peacetime. Especially against civilians.

I’ll let you in on something really messed up: there are no countries that are allowed to do this. It could constitute a war crime, but there is no war, so these horrors are crimes against humanity, and terrorism; Murder and the threat of more. Except, I don’t understand why it’s happening if Trump just pardoned Juan Hernandez, former president of Honduras, who was convicted of trafficking cocaine into the United States by the ton.

How in perdition does that make any sense?

Answer: it doesn’t.

I honestly knew nothing about the 2 September incident in which the so-called “double tap” strike took place until mere days ago.

I’ll tell you my take as a Christian first: I believe the “first strike” to be immoral. Killing is immoral. My renewed faith has no room for arguing this point. Defense against an aggressor in a declared war is one thing; this is nothing similar at all. Jesus never said to go forth and kill and then pretend it never happened. Killing and lying are not just sins, but they go against the conscience most people are inherently equipped with.

So too, Pete Hegseth proved to be a coward, speaking boldly, indeed arrogantly, and then lying to cover himself from any fallout. Which he’s finally getting anyway.

FAKE NEWS

This is something we all have to contend with. It’s a problem because, first of all, some people like to disseminate lies. Secondly, propaganda is effective. Hitler had a dedicated propaganda minister, and the Allied resistance countered Nazi propaganda with outrageously funny and equally effective stunts through the use of radio and printed material. The underground was often connected between occupied countries and those involved risked their lives in their own fight against Nazis.

The Resistance against Nazi Germany was often funny, and one case in particular taught the Kriegsmarine in Norway an unforgettable lesson. Germany had confiscated the entire country’s catch of sardines because canned food lasted longer on U-boat sorties. U-boats were hot, cramped, and they went on long “Wolpack” patrols across the Atlantic to sink Allied escorts and troop ships, but also to stem the unbelievable flow of planes, tanks and a staggering amount of food, medical supplies, uniforms and blankets, a never-ending amount of ships, and while the Germans, including armored cavalry, pilots, and infantry, had been told that the U.S. military was weak and could never outfight Aryans, the Kriegsmarine knew better. Not only could they not stop the shipping, but the Americans became much more efficient at detecting and damaging or sinking their subs. It became necessary for the Nazi armed forces to take drastic measures. Occupied countries had crops and meat confiscated. Troops were resorting to horses and carts for transportation of troops and supplies, and horses were used to pull artillery, some of which were very antiquated pieces from World War One. Combat photography and film footage proves all of this, and perhaps there was a time when they may have prevailed except that Operation Barbarossa had already beaten them. It is the judgement of many scholars that it was inevitable; invading the Soviet Union was a dreadful move. By the time of the flight back to German territory, retreat and surrender was no longer worthy of discussion. Men froze to death lying on their backs, some with an arm bent upward. And the entire war was like that. By the time the U.S. sent its military to engage Germany, it sealed the deal.

The taking of food and even linen for bandages in Nazi-occupied Europe forced the citizens into serious resistance tactics. Men and women alike fought. But in Norway….all of their sardines?

This was too much for Norwegians to take. Fuming, they contacted Allies and ordered a lot of croton oil. They canned the tiny fish with this oil, which is a rather “violent” laxative. In other words, U-boat crews on submarines that had a single toilet were taken out of action and couldn’t return to port fast enough. The interior of the U-boats were wall to wall diarrheic disasters, their men severely dehydrated. There is no mention I could find on the vessel’s turnaround time, but if it took a week, and the crew had to be replaced, then it took the boat out of action and plausibly saved at least some Allied shipping across the Atlantic. The story spread throughout the underground and the Maquis made sure that everyone got the news. The O.S.S. and British agents were probably rolling around on their office floors, stomachs cramped as badly as a German submariner’s, but for a different reason: they were laughing.

When properly coordinated, propaganda is effective. You just can’t overdo it because that’s when the resistance begins.

Today, however, the Trump administration is constantly putting out senseless, uncoordinated and often contradictory fake news, and that alone is funny, yet people are dying. Many more are suffering.

And here’s the thing: sure, this administration is all for cutting out all healthcare even as Trump’s mouth spits lies about healthcare reform. Which, it turns out, would result in a lot of deaths. And this is not World War Two.

But a new Holocaust? Can that happen?

This is all about deporting arbitrary people to other countries, mostly under the assumption that they’re illegal aliens, despite being naturalized and even U.S.-born citizens.

A senator who just loves deportations recently wrote on social media how thankful he is that his parents brought him to the United States (!).

This administration is full of hypocrisy and lies, and it’s so stupid that, if people weren’t suffering and dying, it would be hilarious. One funny thing is a senator introducing a bill which, if passed, would see Melania Trump deported, her dual citizenship cancelled. I tell you, it boggles the mind.

But as I’ve said, people are dying. And the suffering is getting more widespread. Very few things are funny.

I misread, or actually did read, something about a foreign leader being transferred to the Hague and the ICC to face charges of crimes against humanity. It’s likely that I crossed stories, but at first I thought a foreign leader had been detained for the same things as our Navy attacking boats for trafficking drugs.

Actually it was a Libyan official who ran a prison in which he encouraged atrocities including various manner of torture including murder, rape, extreme violence and more. The U.S. and Germany protested, but the ICC overruled them. Knowing nothing further, I can only guess that “illegal aliens” sent to Libya and El Salvador were supposed to undergo such acts and conditions.

Doing so constitutes multiple crimes against humanity under the Trump administration. ICE is allowed to wear masks and vests and be heavily armed and freely roam like Nazi SS and Gestapo men, taking prisoners. ICE agents are feared, but more than anything, they are bitterly hated, and a reckoning is coming.

Even now, as I think about it, I get sick in my body and spirit. Is there really no limit to the evil this administration willingly plans and then commits?

Media like NewsMax and Fox are just as immoral, eagerly egging the administration on and heaping praise on a band of criminals with outrageous lies that defy belief that anyone could be so dishonest as to utter them. Propaganda used to manipulate the public. No matter how stupid, they all spit it out.

NewsMax even put out a poll saying the Fox News reported that Trump had a very low approval percentage. NewsMax wanted to prove them wrong. They’re fighting each other!

No one knows how many families have been separated or how many children have been sent to God-knows-where, or trafficked. Yes, who in this administration would have a problem with that, given how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, once legendary, has worked overtime scrubbing and redacting the material in the so-called “Epstein Files?”

It’s been claimed that the redactions are to conceal the names of victims, and I hope it’s true, but wait! If our military shoots people clinging to a wrecked boat, is it so farfetched to think that the Feds would cook the books to exonerate Trump?

You know what war crimes and crimes against humanity look like. You know what “ethnic cleansing” looks like. Now comes my question:

Are you really supportive of this kind of inhumanity? Or do you condemn these things?

The answer, that’s for you. It isn’t for me. Because if this goes on, it will get worse. I saw the video of the boat. It looked like a small open boat to me, and watching it explode sickened me. You want more? Or are you willing to stand for what’s right, risking your life to speak against evil?

And one more question. If you are in any branch of the military of the United States, and you receive an order to do something you know is illegal, how will you respond?

How will history, and God, judge you? You can’t get away. Everyone will know. Is “I was just following orders” a good enough excuse, like most Wermacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine claimed after VE Day? Right up to the minute they were imprisoned or executed?

It’s up to you.

AI Slop!

Facebook is still allowing posts which claim that Rachel Maddow demanded security to remove Karoline Leavitt from the set of her show. Almost all of them describe Maddow as being enraged.

THIS DID NOT HAPPEN.

There are YouTube videos that are narrated by AI describing the event.

There’s no footage of this. No testimony from audience members, and I don’t even think Rachel has live audiences. There is not one shred of proof, but this 30-some day old bullshit keeps getting reposted.

AI is being so abused as to attempt to reinforce lies, produce risque (or worse) photographs of celebrities (Jennifer Anniston is a frequent target) and to mock anyone and everyone.

I don’t even know if Leavitt was ON her show, but Rachel would never have reacted so. Her strategy would be to let her answer questions in her dimwit way and let Leavitt hang herself.

It is absolutely essential that you become hyper aware of AI content and either report it (useless) or spread the word about lies. The truth is necessary. The truth is under attack. Defend it.

Here’s John Oliver’s take, and it’s worth watching.

The Dangers of AI: WHAT Do the TV Show MAS*H and Mel’s Hole Have in Common?

YouTube warning: the channel “Rory D” is one I came across while doing a search. The video said the same thing again and again, in broken AI narration. It was supposed to be about why Gary Burghoff was so disliked by his M*A*S*H co-stars. The thumbnail is clickbait. For the current technology, this is not only hideous, but also an immediate and unmitigated insult to anyone who dares watch it.

I seriously doubt that any humans had any part of this production. Wait, did I just say “production?”
That’s not what this is.
A “documentary” about the classic TV show wouldn’t really have scenes from westerns inserted, would it? And those clips are not in any way related to the subject.
In trying to block the channel, I was frustrated. Not only could I not “block” it, I couldn’t even request of YouTube that timeless and handy option of (“Do not recommend this channel”). What the hell?
Topping it all off is a really obvious insult that is the featured video on the channel’s homepage: “This drone entered Mel’s hole ..”
I don’t know what’s next because that’s when I backed the heck outta there.
I don’t need to eat a whole pear to know if it’s rotten.
*Mel’s hole is a rural myth with no proof that any part of the story was true. According to one of the conspiracy theories, the government invaded his land and wiped out the hole itself. (they covered the hole because filling it was not an option, as it was bottomless!) It was covered over so cleverly that soil and grass now hide it.

Another whopper — I mean conspiracy theory — is that a native medicine man has been there, and knows that the military still has a base there because it’s a hot spot for aliens from another planet. No such people exist, not Mel Waters, and certainly not a medicine man who wanders freely on and off restricted military property.

Furthermore, note experts, such a bottomless hole can’t exist. Geology says it would collapse with the pressure at such a, um, depth.

Not only that, but “Mel” claimed that over fifteen miles of fishing line was lowered into the hole. Experts say the heat at even a shallower depth would have melted nylon monofilament fishing line (not even Berkeley XT could survive it!).

The story came from a caller to the Coast to Coast AM radio show with Art Bell. Of course Art Bell was not responsible; his callers were often retired soda jerks with insomnia and vividly colorful imaginations.

It’s bullshit, in other words. Mel’s hole never existed. Put that right out of your mind, BUT if you want a laugh, go ahead and look the story up. But not on your pad or PC. Do it at a library so you don’t end up with pseudo shit in your feeds. The story is so preposterous that I wonder how anyone could even have believed it. Or how people from coast to coast weren’t laughing in the streets in the wee hours after running their cars into trees or semi trucks. Hell, I’d have been too scared to drive at all. I’d never have been able to avoid a Walmart rig running over me at 0400. My name ain’t Bruce, and God wouldn’t save me.

And Mel’s hole was never investigated by drones. There’s a gap of more than a decade between the Mel’s hole phone calls and commercial drones like quadcopters.

A YouTube channel run by AI with little or no supervision sticks out like a camel in a steeplechase match. But that will not last.

You can’t trust AI or the humans behind it, because one is going to get better at lying and the other was always good at it.

We are living in an age of lies. Look around you. To every extent that you can, stay observant, stay vigilant and call out liars when you find them.

You Are Being Lied To

Until I read the article that follows in a link, and The Conversation is one site I consider highly accurate, as its articles are written by scholars, I was only vaguely aware of the medical practice of “gaslighting.”

It is a very old medical phenomenon in which doctors outright lie to patients.

The lies are, and I’ve heard this from doctors all my life, anything from the egregious “it’s all in your head” to failing to treat serious conditions due to lack of knowledge, indifference, cookie cutter medicine, greed, laziness and more.

My imaging last August showed profound damage to my lungs due to emphysema. Every day it gets worse but I have yet to get any answers from nurse practitioners or the Shock Trauma doctors.

Congestive heart failure, an enlarged liver that’s dropping efficiency, discs smashed up and down my spine, huge bone spurs in my neck, failure of blood circulation in my lower legs, increasing blindness from cataracts, blackening toes that hurt like sin, and the probability that should I survive past the point I think I will that I will lose my lower legs, damage to my left ear from fights and a diving accident, kidneys reduced in efficiency, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis often causing severe pain to the point of my unwillingness to move, all round out this picture. A portrait of a dead man who fights back for no reason.

I saw a real doctor last week. I was ecstatic at first, because he was so positive. He prescribed Celebrex for pain, referred me to pain management, an MRI, and more.

When the pharmacy, which bills me after I have taken my home delivery, refused to fill my meds unless I paid up front, I knew something was wrong.

Celebrex co-pay: $135.00 a month. I can’t do that. Last month I had to pay $250.00 for a 30 day supply of generic meds. That price will go way up soon, and I will have to drop meds off my prescriptions. Not one of which I would not suffer without.

This doctor didn’t downplay my pain or condition (s).

Others constantly lie about diagnoses, and even a neurologist once told me my short-term memory was a lie I told him because I’ve seen too many TV shows. I never went back and I never paid him. Because, fuck him. When you’re walking down the street, and suddenly don’t know where you are…have to check for a wallet to see who you are…you don’t know that kind of terror unless it happens to you.

Nurse practitioners are the worst. They think they know everything and will quickly lose their temper with you.

But since they really don’t know everything, they’ll send you to every kind of specialist they can, and that’s just another co-pay, more follow-up visits and especially imaging. What a scam.

This doctor, the one I saw last week, lied to me. I told him I wasn’t sure what I could afford with the cuts to healthcare programs. He waved dismissively and said, “aww, that’s just to get rid of the waste.”

That statement stuck in the back of my mind because he’d been so positive. But when I really thought about it, I knew that wasn’t the truth at all. The cuts are sweeping but affect doctors first, by cutting the amount doctors receive from Medicare. And when that happens, it increases a patient’s balance, which the doctor bills you for. He or she won’t make less. You pay more.

As I said last year, people are going to die. Lots of them.

Get ready for the gaslighting to be turned up to full power.

“You’re fine,” they’ll say.

“It’s psychological,” they’ll tell you.

And of course, “It’s all in your head,” which does not refer to psychology, but infers that you’re just a nutter.

The obvious elephant in the room? Two aortic and one iliac aneurysms. They cause even more pain, especially the iliac, because it causes things in the bowels and UT to not exactly work properly. Urinating can be painful, bowels shut down then for days there’s diarrhea. Gas, bloating. It’s all there. Aneurysms can rupture and kill you instantly or almost so. It will be quick and you won’t even know what happened.

I’m living in a body that shouldn’t be alive, and won’t be much longer. I just wish it would hurry up and die.

Because no matter the treatment, I’ll die anyway. The last straw was when he listened to my lungs and never said a word. Just ignore it, doc. I have 1/3rd lung capacity and function (the next day, I cleaned my bedroom and went into a hyperventilating, painful episode).

And medical gaslighting is something you would think is ridiculous, absurd. Nobody does that, right?

But did you ever wonder how many women died of ovarian and uterine cancer, when they were ignored by misogynist doctors?

You know what “hysteria” was?

Women had sex drives in times when men would jump on top in the missionary position, get off and sternly believe no woman should enjoy sex. They’d force their wives to go to doctors. Some stimulated the female genitalia with objects which would include vibrators by the post-war years. Others just used their hands. Imagine being humiliated by that.

Many of the women with high sex drives who were expected to lie still during intercourse were diagnosed with “hysteria.” It was a man’s world. Hysteria derives from the original Greek “hystera,” which means “uterus.”

Once inside a mental asylum, even to the 1950s, anyone would begin to truly become profoundly disturbed mentally. Torturous treatments included, of course, hysterectomy, abuse, ice baths, drugs, restraint, and even worse.

Medical care was a nightmare. It still is. Conditions go untreated and, worse, unacknowledged. This is the essence of gaslighting: lie enough times and the patient will likely believe that lie.

We live in an age of barbarism that you can forget when you’re sitting all warm and snug by the fire, reading a book or binging some crap streaming. You have your belly full, a nice drink, and life is good.

And you ignore all the suffering and the homeless and the addicts. You may think that people bring suffering on themselves or that they’re getting spanked by God.

You may think that the homeless are just too lazy to work.

And maybe you believe that addicts could just stop if they wanted to.

People around the world think like this. And none have any idea how wrong they are until things begin to fall apart for them.

The news, whether print, network or streaming, shape the lies and pump them into the minds of the weak. The sick and wounded and addicted are made to feel guilty, and you are made to believe they are guilty.

And when doctors lie, I consider it not malpractice, but attempted murder.

Because that is exactly what it is.

Here’s the link.