The Real Reason for Firing Comey

(Note: I would expect that most blog readers will detect the Onion flavor of the following piece, but for the record, I will admit that perhaps not everything here is exactly true, though I also couldn't say that it isn't true.)

Breaking news from the But But But report: according to our exclusive source, we can now reveal that Trump’s real reason for firing Comey stems from his conclusion that James chose a special last name as a personal insult to him, and in addition, he believes JC launched an investigation into the history of his hairdo. The President is convinced that the former FBI director spells his last name C-o-m-b-i-e and that he picked that moniker as a direct insult to Donald’s very unique hair styling. From the beginning of their working association, Trump had planned to fire Comey due to his belief that James was insulting him through choice of name, and he decided that the moment to do so had arrived when JC asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer the question?” Trump heard that as “Orange You going to dance the western?” This further angered Donald, who felt an additional insult in Orange You and immediately shouted “I’m not dancing — you’re fired!” He then momentarily hesitated, waiting for a director to yell “Cut!”

Our exclusive source has revealed a few other inside tidbits from the Trump Whitest House, including the fact that DJT chose his Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin not out of respect for any financial competence, but because he thought Steve spells his last name as M-u-n-c-h-i-n’ and Donald figured they would therefore have a good time sharing meals together in the oval office. Trump also picked Rick Perry to lead the Department of Low Energy (DoLE) after the former TX governor agreed to not challenge him in 2020, and Donald awarded that particular position as a returned favor, so that if and when Perry does decide to run for president again, he will have less trouble remembering the names of departments he wants to eliminate. Trump selected Steve Bannon as chief strategist because he thought SB spelled his last name B-a-n-n-i-n’ and he took that as a sign that Steve would naturally know how to assist him in bannin’ all the scary people that he fears.

As for Trump’s friendliness with Putin, that seems to stem largely from his belief that Vlad will, by virtue of his name, Put-in a lot, meaning he’s expected to make generous financial contributions to Trump businesses. Donald’s disdain for NATO evidently comes from his notion that the acronym stands for Not A Trustworthy Organization and DJT finds it insulting that most of the other G20 reps seem to converse with each other in some kind of code that he can’t understand, as if they’re speaking a different language. Trump has reportedly yelled “Speak English!” on more than one occasion, to be met with puzzled stares. He may have even shouted “You’re fired!” at least once, generating exactly the same reaction.

Meanwhile, Trump may be considering axing his Secretary of Education because when people say her name, he hears it as Betsy DaBoss and he’s getting tired of having to say “She’s not da boss — I am!” However, he has also privately expressed pleasure to his inner circle every time someone mentions the name of his SCOTUS appointee, because he hears that name as Kneel Goresucks.

Alex Jones Warning About Internet Al Gore Rhythms (from InfoWarps)

(Note: While most readers will probably recognize the Onion flavor of this article, to be totally clear, Mr. Jones did not actually say any of the following quotes.)

(Thursday, 3/16/17) Today Alex Jones issued a dire warning to his listeners: “Remember when Al Gore claimed that he never said he invented the internet? Well, the inconvenient truth is that he lied — he did invent the internet! And why did he invent it? He did it so he could get control of your mind, my mind, and everyone else’s mind, not just here in America, but all over the world! And how is he controlling everyone’s mind? With Al Gore rhythms! All of his big friends on the web, from Google to Amazon to Yahoo, have been telling us for years that they each have their own special Al Gore rhythm! They’re not trying to hide this fact — they’re boasting about it! Is anyone paying attention? And what are these Al Gore rhythms doing to our minds? Remember Pavlov’s dogs? The more Al Gore infects our minds with his rhythms, the more likely it is that we’ll follow his orders, no matter what he tells us to do!”

“And what is Al Gore going to tell us to do? This Satanist already has his government toadies controlling the weather, trying to get you to believe in his climate-change global warming hoax! Meanwhile, his big government gang will hit you with storms that might blow your house down! He wants you to be so confused that you’ll believe in Sandy Hook and all these other fake massacres, and then he’ll send his CIA agent friend Glenn Beck to come and get your guns. Beck will tell you he’s going to keep them for you, hiding them from the government, and because it’s Glenn, you might believe him! Don’t fall for it! Glenn used to pretend to be one of us, and to be against big government, but now we know it was all a scam — he’s working for Big Government!”

“How do you know if those Al Gore rhythms have gotten into your mind? I’ve already warned you that Cheese Pizza is Hillary code for Child Pornography, so if you suddenly start asking yourself if Pizzagate is real, LOOK OUT! When those government people come to your door to get your kid, and they say it’s a field trip, the children are going to have fun, and they’re going to eat PIZZA, remember what I said — if you let your kid go, you’ll be sorry! Hillary will be laughing at you over your child’s lifeless body, after she’s made her money prostituting your own flesh and blood! That’s what those Al Gore rhythms will do to you! Netflix, eBay, Facebook — they’re all now controlling your mind, with their own special Al Gore rhythms, and they’re bragging about it! They won’t stop, even if they get you to believe that Gore got more votes in 2000 than George W. Bush!”

Final note: this article comes from the “news dump” in my 3/17 monthly newsletter, and if you think you’d like to read these pieces when I make them available, you can sign up for my monthly missive at daveelder.com.

Large Orange Snowflake Moves to D.C.

(Friday, 5/19/17) A large orange snowflake that had previously called Manhattan its home has apparently made a recent move to the Washington, D.C., area, raising concerns among those who care strongly about the federal government’s ability to function effectively on behalf of citizens, and to guard public safety. Already, the presence of this huge tinted crystal has interrupted operations at the EPA and the Department of Education, among others. Some have suggested that the enormous citrus-shaded chip has filled the nearby air with an impenetrable fog, and in so doing, has greatly deepened the city’s swamp.

The massive colored bit of frozen vapor has, in the past, also made regular appearances gliding along a Florida golf course, and even though it seems to now reside in the District of Colombia, the FL sightings continue, as often as before, if not more so. While some might question the likelihood of the same bit drifting around both scenes, no two snowflakes are alike, and this one has some strong identifying characteristics that leave no doubt, according to observers. 

A scientist familiar with Orangino explained that its size and shade stem from a thick layer of dark daddy-bucks that shield it from the warmth which melts smaller flakes, giving it the ability to float along in Florida, as well as to hang around during the warmer months in NYC and D.C. He cautions, however, that the big orange flake reacts very strongly to close examination, heated questioning and criticism, to such a degree that the presence of too much negativity applied at any one moment could cause an uncontrollable meltdown, with unpredictable, and possibly catastrophic, consequences. 

“It could leave behind a massive hole in the ground, and perhaps an even more colossal blast zone. When a big one like this goes off, you never know what it could bring down with it.”

So what would be the best way to ensure that the big orange snowflake doesn’t do any major damage? Some have suggested taking a closer look at the path it followed from Manhattan to D.C., in a search for clues as to its unravelling. In the meantime, anyone coming in contact with Orangino should tread lightly, because otherwise, things might come to a head, and there could be hell toupee.

Deconstructing the Road Administrative State

(Friday, 4/20/17) Today the Trump administration announced its new plan to, as Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained, “deconstruct the road administrative state” by removing two highway signs for each new one put in place, with a similar tactic applied to traffic lights and other movement restrictions. According to the official policy statement, “Traffic laws are low impact, unable to demonstrate strong performance outcomes. All of these signs, signals and regulations haven’t put an end to traffic deaths — in fact, the last 2 years have been the deadliest ones ever on the highway! Putting more restrictions on driving clearly hasn’t worked, so we have to go a different way! We’re destroying these horrible road regulations that have been placed on your heads.”

This proposal gives structure to the complaints Trump expressed during the campaign when he criticized traffical correctness, saying, “For too long, Americans have been needlessly stuck in gridlock, and the problem is that today nobody wants to hit anyone any more. Back in the good old days, in some places in this country there were no speed limits at all! Now, as soon as you pull out of your driveway you’ll see a traffic sign! Together, we can change that — let’s make America race again!” According to his press secretary, the President believes that with fewer road laws in place, citizens will move about more freely, and they don’t need their government to tell them how fast they can or can’t go on the highway, because they’re smart enough to figure that out for themselves. 

In conjunction with this announcement, Speaker Ryan’s office issued a corroborating declaration: “Having all of these unnecessary traffic laws lulls able-minded people into complacency on the road, as they come to depend on the government for highway guidance, draining them of their will and incentive to make the most of their driving — it’s demeaning!”

When asked if this program might lead to more traffic-related injuries, Secretary Spicer answered that President Trump believes Americans can and will take responsibility for their driving, pulling themselves up by the running boards, and that this will improve their motoring fiber. The press secretary issued a final communication to close the conference: “The President believes Americans know when to shift into reverse, when to put on the brakes, and when to floor it, so the government doesn’t need to get in their way, slow them down, hold them back, send them on a detour or in any way keep them from getting to where they want to go!”

Libertarianism Vs. Human History

On a recent segment of Sam Seder’s The Majority Report, he featured an interview with a prominent libertarian, and from listening to that sequence, I believe that I understand the basic libertarian credo, which can apparently be summed up in the following statement: No one has a right to the fruits of my labor, I have no right to the fruits of someone else’s labor, and everyone must be responsible for himself/herself and the consequences of his/her actions.

I thought Sam did an excellent job of questioning his guest about the possible legal logistics that might be necessary to establish ownership rights under the libertarian vision, and his guest could not fill in very many of the fuzzy edges, which I didn’t find surprising, but given the preceding summation of libertarianism, a couple of other, even simpler, questions came to my mind.

If a libertarian handed me the statement above, I would have to ask the speaker if he/she really meant to suggest that, in the absence of any centralized authority capable of holding the rich and powerful accountable in any way for their misdeeds, the rich and powerful would simply act in a more responsible manner? Any sort of affirmative reply would then lead me to argue that the entirety of human history would say otherwise. I learned the phrase Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely at a very young age, and whatever else I might have gotten right or wrong on my history tests, I always saw quite clearly the embodiment of that phrase in the darker chapters of every era since our early ancestors started writings things down.

My other potential question to the libertarian philosopher would be to ask what, in the absence of any centralized authority that could redistribute wealth in a more equitable way across society, would prevent the rich and powerful from naturally accruing an ever-increasing share of society’s resources, to the point where any semblance of democratic representation would effectively disappear, leading to the eventual collapse of the entire societal structure when it passes the point of sustainability due to its top-heavy aspect. In the U.S., previous generations have struggled against oligarchy to varying degrees, and that struggle continues to the present day. At the moment, the oligarchs are winning, but if we wish to have a future for our democracy, then the people will have to turn that struggle around at some point, just as previous generations in our country have done.

During my HS days, 50 years ago, I questioned Marx’s class-struggle hypothesis, but then, over the decades, I came to see the reality of that theory, although I would qualify the basic concept with the caveat that the rich and powerful, just as every other segment of society, are not monolithic, but rather, the one percent includes kind and generous types as well as the greedy and heartless jerks of various shades. The greedy heartless ones may even be a minority of the one percent, but they exert outsized influence in the service of their greed, with their money talking loudly as they try to drown out all dissenting voices that might disagree with them.

In light of this conversation about money, libertarianism looks to me like the tool of a group of one percenter greedheads, designed for the purpose of intellectually disarming a portion of potential dissenters who might otherwise pay more attention to injustices perpetrated by those greedheads. Despite its claims to Reason, libertarianism doesn’t seem to stand up well to questions of rational functionality, as Mr. Seder’s recent interview segment would appear to indicate, but to my mind, I see it resting on a foundation of pure fantasy that ignores the entirety of human history. Maybe a few of those greedy one percenters have convinced themselves that they really believe it, but even if they are fooling themselves, they’re not fooling me.

Pipeline Wars 3 — What a Blast!

In my previous post 2 weeks ago, I outlined the stories of 2 particular families who lost property rights to a pipeline. The pipeline companies in both cases wielded the hammer of eminent domain against the families, even though the resulting lines have been designed to function as export conduits, and therefore not designed to serve any public benefit, which is the supposed justification for the use of eminent domain. Both families were forced to grant pipeline companies a right of way, despite strongly opposing the presence of a gas pipeline going through their land.

In one case, the pipeline chainsaw gang massacred the maple trees that provided the basis for a family maple syrup business. In a related development that I didn’t mention in the post, a property owner along the proposed right of way faced the possibility of having to sacrifice an established Christmas tree business to pipeline crew chainsaws. Such stories, and much worse, abound along proposed pipeline routes. Not long ago, one homeowner in MI fought and lost, and had to live with a pipeline going into his back yard less than 10 feet from his back door.

That’s not all — even if you don’t own property that falls within a pipeline’s proposed path, the monster can still hurt you if it gets too close. How? By having your home fall within, or perilously close to, the blast zone.

Less than a year after a woman relocated back to her home town of Deerfield, MA, following the purchase of an expensive house there, she learned, in March of 2015, that a proposed gas pipeline, if built, would pass within 500 feet of her home, putting her inside the so-called 900-foot incineration zone. The woman had paid nearly $6K in taxes for 2014 on the place, which carries an assessed value of $382K, and she had originally purchased it with the intention of operating a Bed and Breakfast business at the location. Before learning about the pipeline proposal, she had completed a series of renovations on the place as well.

As soon as she found herself inside the incineration zone, the woman felt trapped. She believed she could no longer plan on running a B and B, due to liability concerns, yet she also couldn’t sell the place for anything approaching fair market value, because home buyers generally don’t like the sound of the phrase incineration zone. She herself would not want to stay in her home if that pipeline went into the ground, because she doesn’t want to live under the constant threat of a fireball suddenly swallowing her.

Recently the woman, and other opponents of this particular pipeline, including myself, got some good news, when Kinder Morgan announced in late April that it would suspend the project. So does that announcement end the woman’s problems? Of course not. This proposed pipeline monster casts a long shadow, and it could easily take a good half-dozen years or longer to rest assured that the beast will not reappear. In the meantime, it actually could reappear, at any moment.

So what should she do now? Spend more money to develop a B and B business that she may not actually get to operate? That doesn’t sound promising. Should she try to sell the place? As long as the incineration zone possibility lingers in the air, it will lower the value of the property.

But hey, how bad is it really, living in a blast zone? It might not seem so bad until the blast happens, but when it does, it can get really, really, really bad. The day after Kinder Morgan’s late April announcement, a Spectra gas pipeline in western PA blew up, totally destroyed one property, melted some sections of road and caused major problems with lots of other properties in the region. According to one of my friends who has studied the official documents, the actual blast zone far exceeded the official one, and if so, that would only deepen the dilemma of the Deerfield woman, and others like her who, through no fault of their own, suddenly find themselves too close to the potential path of a proposed gas pipeline beast.

The pipeline wars go on, with the pipeline companies blatantly abusing the right of eminent domain, and the authorities all too often siding with the petrochemical industry rather than citizen property rights, although significant exceptions do exist. The sooner we free our society from fossil fuel dependency, the sooner we’ll free ourselves of new monsters, both known and unknown, that the fossil fuel industries might want to unleash.

Pipeline Wars 2 — What Property Rights?

In Part 1, I gave the basic outline of the process by which pipeline companies routinely get the power of eminent domain handed to them by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Once empowered to steal landowner rights, those pipeline gangs quickly set to work stomping all over places where they’re not welcome. Newspapers along proposed pipeline routes have regularly carried stories over the past few years about pipeline surveyors repeatedly trespassing on properties regardless of landowner objections and opposition.

Basically, the pipeline companies do whatever they want, regardless of legal implications, and as often as not, they get away with it, though not always. In the case of Mercer Co., NJ, county officials had given PennEast surveyors permission to survey public lands in the county, and then had to revoke that permission when they discovered PennEast employees conducting soil borings, which could potentially prove harmful to the environment.

The conflict between petrochemical industry desires and essential property rights has set up an interesting dynamic among self-described conservatives who supposedly stand on an ideology of support for property rights, but who, in the real world, and in positions of political power, generally cater to industry wishes. To their credit, a Republican majority in Georgia voted about a month ago to suspend a major pipeline project called the Palmetto, mainly due to property rights concerns.

All too often, though, the legal apparatus aligns itself seamlessly with the petrochemical industry. In February, a federal judge in Scranton, PA, handed over the property rights of the Holleran family in New Milford to the Constitution pipeline gang, who showed up on March 1, with a number of heavily-armed guards, and started a chainsaw massacre of the maple trees that had for many years supplied the sap for the family’s maple syrup business, called North Harford Maple. It remains an open question as to what just compensation actually means in such a circumstance.

Similarly, at the end of March, Sunoco Logistics sent its chainsaw gang to massacre trees on the Gerhart property in Huntingdon County, PA, cutting a path for its Mariner East 2 pipeline project. This beast, designed to carry natural gas liquids from the fracking fields of OH, WV and western PA, will, if completed, terminate in the Marcus Hook, PA, area, just as the Mariner East 1 already does. The Marcus Hook terminal, not so coincidentally, serves as an export facility from which Sunoco began ethane shipments in February.

As badly as I felt over the Holleran situation, being a personal friend of some of the New Milford protestors, and also being someone who had considered making the drive to NM, I still think the Gerhart episode makes the case against the eminent domain contradictions so much more self-evident. The company seeking to build the Constitution pipeline has tried at least in part to maintain the fiction of public benefit from its proposed project, whereas Sunoco doesn’t even bother with the lies when it comes to the ME 2. The company makes no secret of the fact that it ships the natural gas liquids to Europe, and that it has large contracts to fill in that regard. No public interest gets fulfilled by the Mariner East 2 — the only thing that gets filled are the wallets of Sunoco’s executives.

So then, what gives Sunoco the right to cut down trees and build a pipeline across the Gerhart property, where the company’s presence is obviously not wanted? The Gerhart family has owned that property since 1982, and has participated in a state program to preserve forestland on their property, but such facts clearly mean nothing to a greedy petrochemical company. Butane, propane and ethane moving through a pipeline are all, by the way, quite explosive — I mentioned in an earlier piece about 2 teenagers in TX who died when a Koch Industries butane pipeline exploded back in 1996 — so the Gerharts have more than one reason to not want the Mariner East 2 running through their place.

So what gives Sunoco the right? FERC gave it to them, and a judge put his rubber stamp of legal approval on it as well, even though the Mariner East 2 will serve no public good, and therefore, no actual justification exists for the eminent domain hammer Sunoco holds over the heads of the Gerhart family, and any others who might oppose the pipeline gang. 

The Gerhart and Holleran stories are but 2 of many that revolve around the abuse of eminent domain. Some months ago an Ohio landowner walked out of a court and said to a reporter, “I thought we lived in America.” He apparently thought he had property rights, and maybe he did, until a pipeline company wanted to take them away.

I’ll have more pipeline stories to share in Part 3, but the main point to understand is that currently, pipeline companies commonly steal property rights through eminent domain, for projects that plainly do not benefit the public, and FERC empowers them to do so, all to serve a shared monetary interest. 

One further note: I mentioned in an earlier piece about the Koch Bros. that David and Charles do happen to be in the pipeline business, and as anti-government as they claim to be, somehow, I still feel quite certain that they’re perfectly happy to wield an eminent domain hammer that’s been handed over to their company by the government.