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The hysteria manufacturing business formerly known as the news media is enjoying multiple orgasms this morning in the outing of notoriously vulgar comedian Louis CK for exactly the sort of vulgar behavior offstage that he riffed about onstage. What a surprise. We also learn today that Jeremy Piven, beloved and admired for his role as a bimbo-berating Hollywood agent in the HBO comedy Entourage, is alleged to have groped a starlet in his trailer. Or was he just doggedly staying in character between set-ups? And what was she doing there, anyway? Stopping by to share the everything bagel with jalapeño cream cheese that she picked up at craft services?

I suppose these guys will be joining Kevin Spacey in his new dinner theater in Tampa, since they’ll never work in Hollywood again, and surely they have bills to pay, especially to their lawyers. Hollywood itself, being the vulgar place it has always been, must be nervously awaiting the inevitable next phase of this melodrama: when various actresses, and other women around the biz, are revealed to be sluts who screwed and blew their way to stardom — not to put too fine a point on it. Surely a few ladies out there have misbehaved in the way that ladies can, trading favors for fame and fortune — or do you suppose that never happens? Or only when men force them to? (Anyway, don’t count on hearing about that in The New York Times.)

Then the whole prurient cavalcade of cross-allegation and litigation will be as forgotten as a mass slaughter in Las Vegas, or Texas, or Lower Manhattan, and it will be back to business-as-usual in the news racket: nattering about contacts with Russia, a faraway land that, we’re told, is determined to corrupt the morals of our shining city on a hill.

The metamorphosis of the news business from a dignified and necessary component of the public interest to a gong and geek show is now complete. Some of you may remember that it used to be the task of news organizations to actually gather the news from far and wide. When Walter Cronkite came over the airways on CBS news, he “anchored” the revolving team of reporters in the field: we go to Marvin Kalb in Moscow… Fred Graham in Atlanta… Peter Kalischer in Paris… Lesley Stahl in New York…. Do you know what those people were doing? They were reporting the news on site, because it was important to actually be in the places where events were happening and talking to the people involved in them. And, by the way, do you think Marvin Kalb made contact with Russians? Or perhaps reported on other fellow Americans in contact with Russians? (And that was back in the Cold War, when Russia was run by the wicked Boris and Natasha).

Turn on Anderson Cooper on CNN these days and what do you get: “And now lets turn to our panel for analysis.” Our panel? Analysis? A gang of moonlighting kibitzers with an opinion about what might have actually happened in the world that day, which none of them have been busy actually reporting on. The transformation on the cable networks especially has been insidious. Not so distantly as the days of the Iraq War, CNN checked in every night with Christiane Amanpour, the last of the great foreign correspondents, roving about the Middle East. Do these so-called news organizations even employ any reporters anymore?

I don’t think so. Perhaps the most important story of the decade is the developing meltdown of governance and authority in Saudi Arabia and a Defcon Red level of potential for major war breaking out between them and Iran. How many reporters do the cable networks have in Riyadh today? What’s on CNN’s home page this morning? Boy dies after eating grilled cheese; Why men use masturbation to harass women; and the lead under their “Top Stories” banner: ‘Magnum, P.I.’ actor John Hillerman dies. Maybe you can find a clue in here why the USA has become a reality-optional society. Maybe it’s the American news media that actually has its dick in its hand.


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297 Responses to “Spanking the Monkey”

  1. jayrome November 10, 2017 at 9:05 am #

    Those in pursuit of Money, Power and Fame will do ANYTHING!

    • akmofo November 10, 2017 at 9:41 am #

      CNN fake-news green screen is not “anything”, it is something else!
      Our esteemed host is still probably clueless to this technical artistry —
      he still calls CNN a news outlet. In fact, none of the MSM is in any way
      authentic. It is all staged and scripted. A CIA propaganda echo chamber.

    • noel bodie November 10, 2017 at 10:45 am #

      Since it is against my religion to pay for tv, I have never had a cable subscription even tho I own shares in Comcast…thanks everyone for the support. I have enjoyed listening to Ianmasters.com and Democracy Now for my news.

    • K-Dog November 11, 2017 at 11:55 am #

      Even apologize it seems.


      I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not.

      These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was O.K. because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them. Now I’m aware of the extent of the impact of my actions. I learned yesterday the extent to which I left these women who admired me feeling badly about themselves and cautious around other men who would never have put them in that position. I also took advantage of the fact that I was widely admired in my and their community, which disabled them from sharing their story and brought hardship to them when they tried because people who look up to me didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t think that I was doing any of that because my position allowed me not to think about it. There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for. And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with. I wish I had reacted to their admiration of me by being a good example to them as a man and given them some guidance as a comedian, including because I admired their work.

      The hardest regret to live with is what you’ve done to hurt someone else. And I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them. I’d be remiss to exclude the hurt that I’ve brought on people who I work with and have worked with who’s professional and personal lives have been impacted by all of this, including projects currently in production: the cast and crew of Better Things, Baskets, The Cops, One Mississippi, and I Love You, Daddy. I deeply regret that this has brought negative attention to my manager Dave Becky who only tried to mediate a situation that I caused. I’ve brought anguish and hardship to the people at FX who have given me so much The Orchard who took a chance on my movie. and every other entity that has bet on me through the years. I’ve brought pain to my family, my friends, my children and their mother.

      I have spent my long and lucky career talking and saying anything I want. I will now step back and take a long time to listen. Thank you for reading.

      Seems he is not just choking the chicken and has already apologized to some of the women previously.

      WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT OUT OF THE MAN?

  2. Epicur November 10, 2017 at 9:05 am #

    At the “risk” of being branded an elitist (no risk actually, it’s a sure thing), I will comment that, IMO, a great deal of the coarsening of the nation is a by-product of the re-distribution of wealth.

    When the lower rungs of society had no money to pursue with advertising there was little profit it pandering to their “interests” as they could not spend what they did not have. Now that they have disposable “income” their vapid interests have become the interests of the media.

    Yeah, I know, I’m a very bad person for noticing such things.

    • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 9:10 am #

      Correction: “…little profit in pandering…”

    • hmuller November 10, 2017 at 10:04 am #

      Well then, you should be very happy that the rich are getting richer and the poor are sinking to a banana republic subsistence level. A story just out shows the 3 richest men in America have the net worth of the bottom 50% of Americans. Oh yes, let us embrace and rejoice in Globalism. The irony may be that you too, Epicur, may one day be expendable to these elitists.
      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-09/three-americans-now-own-more-wealth-bottom-half-us-combined-report

      • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 10:26 am #

        “Well then, you should be very happy that the rich are getting richer and the poor are sinking to a banana republic subsistence level.”

        Quite a leap of logic there. You might qualify for the Olympics in conclusion jumping.

        You do a wonderful job of conflating two totally separate issues – well done.

        As I said, no “risk” at all.

      • Walter B November 10, 2017 at 10:43 am #

        If there is still anyone left out here that thinks that when a very few control more and more that we shall all prosper from their hand outs (trickle down economics). It would be wise to remind them that in the corporate/business/money making world it is a food chain, a dog eat dog system. Yes these big boys do hand out sweets to those around them that protect them and do their bidding, but anyone that understand mathematics will realize that there are few such spots and they are already taken. In the end you have to ask yourself the question, “How well will I do competing against Bill Gates”? Does not sound good, does it?

        • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 11:01 am #

          Life is like a stew, the scum rises to the top, the dregs sink to the bottom, the meat and potatoes are in the middle.

          That the wealthy abuse their positions is nothing new. When the abuse gets bad enough things change, sometimes violently – BUT even Marx recognized that the lumpen proletariat did not have what it takes to build a functioning society.

          Today the poor are romanticized as victims of society, and in truth they are not treated well, but the majority are victims of their own deficiencies. Spend a little time in a homeless shelter, I have, then you might see that most of them suffer because of their behavior.

          The revolutionary leftist view is that charity is an attempt by the well-off to subjugate the downtrodden and keep them in victim status. That is the justification for their anger. They keep breaking eggs, but have yet to make an omelette.

          That is not to invoke moral stigma, just factual analysis.

    • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 10:47 am #

      Epicur,
      I think you have it backward…when there was a consumer base with disposable income, news was a vector for advertising. With a consumer base with little, advantage is gained by molding and slanting public opinion, hence MSM as we see it today.

      And I think we will all agree, you are a very bad person(not).

    • sharonsj November 10, 2017 at 3:01 pm #

      I know a lot of people on the lower rungs (myself included) and we don’t have much disposable money to spend on advertised products. It’s also why we currently have a “retail apocalypse (re Business Insider). P.S. It’s not so much internet buying as vulture capitalists destroying chain stores.

      I think the answer is our terrible education system which has left most Americans dumb as dirt, and so they are easily distracted from the sucking sound of all money being funneled upwards. I don’t blame the teachers; I blame the bureaucrats, politicians, religious nuts, and the DeVos family.

      • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 5:09 pm #

        The lower rungs I am talking about are not determined financially but by self control, e.g. delaying gratification, eschewing drugs, holding one’s temper. These things correlate somewhat with financial success, but are not the same. They correlate highly with avoiding self destructive behavior.

        I am not wealthy, myself, nor do I rank in the upper income brackets. I am 71 years old and still have to work.

        The problems in the schools pre-date the De Vos family by a good bit and have more to do with maintaining discipline and standards, IMO. If kids do not want an education you cannot give it to them.

        • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 5:24 pm #

          The lower rungs are occupied mostly by those who fail (or would fail) the marshmallow test.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

          That does not make these people evil or worthy of condemnation, but civilization does not have much to offer them. Today it is pretended that there is a cure for this, but no one has yet demonstrated that cure.

          They make very different life choices than people who pass the test.

    • SpeedyBB November 10, 2017 at 9:41 pm #

      Yes, and as a fellow bad person let me quote the crack allegedly made by Red Skelton at the massively- attended Forest Lawn funeral of despised mogul (and Head of Columbia Pictures) Harry Cohn: “Just like Harry always said ‘Give the people what they want to see and they’ll turn out for it’.”

  3. Bro Jobe November 10, 2017 at 9:07 am #

    Americans have long had little interest in events beyond our shores. In fact, the ongoing rebuilding in Texas and Florida from the hurricanes has dropped out of the news cycle.

    That’s why we will be blindsided if Saudi Arabia implodes. It well could; the Prince either is rounding up foes, Ataturk style, to build a more modern society or he will fail at it and fall, plunging The Kingdom into a civil war. I hope it’s the former. Ataturk’s brutal method of secularism kept Turkey stable and Euro-centric for 70 years, until the rise of radical Islam around its borders. It could have gone far worse.

    Either way, a war between The Kingdom & Iran looks more likely; with that, the global oil markets will go berserk.

    At $3.50 per gallon for 87 octane, from past experience, Americans finally start to notice. At $5.00 per gallon and rising, Americans would go apeshit and it would be dangerous to even go to a gas station.

    • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 9:11 am #

      “That’s why we will be blindsided if Saudi Arabia implodes.”

      “When”, Bro Jobe, “when”.

      • Gherry November 10, 2017 at 4:18 pm #

        Hello Friend

        Small disclaimer IE Phone typing….Saudi to my mind is clearly
        Evolution -a 32 year old Prince…all his younger clan many of whom
        Educated in Switzerland….next year allowing women to drive.

        It’s evolution my friend!!it might have a pushback with plenty ugly…but,that’s a given with evolution.
        Cheers

    • Mountain gal November 10, 2017 at 9:13 am #

      But that would require people to have some understanding of just how different Iran and SA are; they’re not just “Muslims”. What happens in the ME is ultimately one heck of a lot more important than what makes it to the front page of CNN as JHK notes but it takes more brain power to decipher.

    • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 10:52 am #

      Bro Jobe,
      Has it occurred to you that the “palace coup” could have been engineered by our own secret services? If the House of Saud were planning to break with their “oil for dollars” promise and begin using the Chinese Model of payment due to being early in January, mountains would be moved and rivers diverted to keep this from happening.

      • My Point of View November 10, 2017 at 12:11 pm #

        The recent palace coup happened just days after Super Boy Jared visited on one of his “mid east peace” forays and a separate parallel visit by our esteemed Treasury Secretary, Mr. Munchkin.

      • SpeedyBB November 10, 2017 at 9:50 pm #

        That’s brilliant. Now I do feel stupid. Never fall for coincidences, except in the geometrical sense.

        Petroyuan must never be allowed to displace the Almighty Dollar.

      • BuckP November 10, 2017 at 10:57 pm #

        Iran 1953 Mosaddegh overthrown by CIA to aid BP
        Guatemala 1954 Arbenz overthrown by CIA to aid United Fruit
        Chile 1973 Allende, overthrown by CIA at behest of Nixon Admin.
        Iraq 2003 Saddam Hussein invasion wanted to sell oil in euros
        Libya 2011 Gaddaf overthrown by secret Ops wanted new currency

        I agree with your comment and have little doubt our secret s.services are behind this. They have facilitated overthrows and insurrections for a lot less. The Chinese petroyuan backed by gold is a legitimate threat to the hegemony of the dollar. Russia, Iran, Qatar and Venezuela are already onboard.
        Other BRICS and Europe could follow. This is like the 1930’s all over again only everybody has nukes!

    • islander800 November 11, 2017 at 3:46 pm #

      Forget $5.00/gallon for gas, what do you think the reaction will be when gas rationing has to be introduced? Because that’s what will happen, very quickly, when all mid-east oil exports to the world cease, since the opening gambit of Iran will be to block the Strait of Hormuz with sunken tankers. America will suffer pain, but the economies of Europe and Asia will be decimated. And no, America can’t frack its way out of that one.

      But hey, there may be a silver lining. Sky-high prices, combined with rationing, will be the final nail in the coffin of the Oil Age. With renewables now competitive with oil even at today’s prices, it will be the tipping point were it makes economic sense to go all-in on renewables – and put an end to these ridiculous “oil wars” once and for all. This at just the moment when the last argument against renewables, the intermittent nature of delivery, is about to be answered by a variety of new technologies about to go on-line for energy storage on massive scales.

      Unfortunately, it may all be moot, as any Iranian war that draws in America (and make no mistake, America WILL be drawn in) could easily spiral out of control with nuclear exchanges among Russia, America and Israel. Huddled in dark basements eating the last of any canned food for a long, long time, gasoline prices will be the least of our worries.

  4. Mountain gal November 10, 2017 at 9:08 am #

    Why is MSM so vapid and content to just sell tabloid level sleaze? Well, sex sells. It’s what the people want to read(or listen to or watch I suppose). Most don’t want to read in-depth stories of the big issues of the day that truly impact us. Way too boring. Much more exciting to read about who did what with whom in Hollywood. And so we fiddle while Rome burns. Keeps us from asking any thorny questions though so the powers that be are just fine with that.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 1:39 pm #

      “Most”? Indeed Mg. You have just disproved the validity of both Democracy and universal advanced education.

  5. DrGonzo November 10, 2017 at 9:15 am #

    Or, maybe the mainstream corporate media has become a joke because Americans quit supporting serious news outlets with their subscription dollars years ago.

    Moreover, the corporate-TV bottom line — unleashed from the old requirements to maintain an independent, loss-leader news division — now requires turning a quick buck by any means necessary. The masses must be titilated and entertained, not informed, if profit is the objective.

    It’s easy to throw stones, but as news consumers, this media circus is our fault as much as theirs. They give us what we want. Or at least what they think we want, because we’re willing to pay for it. And we’re willing to buy the Humira and the Chevy pickups and the I-phones that they relentlessly shill.

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    • Mountain gal November 10, 2017 at 9:23 am #

      Bread and circuses……

      • pedal pusher November 11, 2017 at 2:28 pm #

        High fructose corn syrup and cable television…

    • Cavepainter November 10, 2017 at 9:40 am #

      Wrong; the single purpose of media today is “creating” markets by urging indulgence of baser impulses rather than responsibly fulfilling the purpose of elevating public awareness about issues of national interest. Oh damn (!); I forgot that nationalism is taboo today — next thing you know I’ll be making the faux-pas of suggesting that distinction be made between citizen and non-citizen, then retrograde back to use of the term illegal alien (implying that border enforcement and immigration laws be enforced).

      • SpeedyBB November 10, 2017 at 9:58 pm #

        They sure as hell are enforced in this part of the ‘hood (East Asia) And even with all the whining about the fate of the poor Rohingya Muslims, you will note that not one heavily-Islamic nation has offered to take them in.

        National borders apparently still matter for some folks.

    • ozone November 10, 2017 at 10:29 am #

      Dr. Gonzo,
      That’s why it’s now [commonly] known as “infotainment”. It’s all the result of worship of money. Personally, I’ve never seen that as anything close to a “virtue”. Madison Ave. (participating in the circle of loot-chasers) has assiduously tried to make us want shit we never knew we wanted. I’ve always seen this ploy as the height of bullshittery and carnival barking. (Born cynic, or taught deductive thinking? Not sure, but I’m fine with it…) Going from there to celebrity worship and Trump as POTUS ain’t such a yuge leap.

      Mystified Americans of the Modern Age of constant communication, endless entertainments and NO introspection will remain mystified. Got alienated mass shooters? No worries, more guns or less guns is the issue (- and whichever way the money flows is the way it will go); please don’t think it any deeper than that… it may impinge on our sense of being the very center of the dopamine universe. On to celebrities fucking (or fucking *with*) each other.

      America is an indispensable nation and should be running the world entire; as is reflected in it’s “values”. Yeah, sure.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 2:14 pm #

      Exactly. Man is a fallen being and needs a strong traditional society to keep him on the straight and narrow. And yes, that means Censorship and control of Hollywood for example. But how many time have you and yours mocked the attempt to keep the movies decent? Seems like you want to have it both ways…. Well you can’t. Choose.

      • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 4:17 pm #

        Janos regularly accuses me of power-hunger. Why? Because I take positions contrary to his, I guess, and don’t let him push me around. Then he declares the importance of censorship and control, blithely and unprompted. Comedy!

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 6:55 pm #

          In other words, you want to show porn to little kids and have them be taught sex ed by Trannies in Clown Costumes. Freedom!

          Sorry Elwrong, Nature has strict rules and your idea of freedom is just a license to break those rules and to kill the innocent thereby.

          • Walter B November 10, 2017 at 11:28 pm #

            I have been very fortunate in being able to have a second set of children and to experience the difference in what my children have been “taught” comparing both times. The second set have been inundated with sexual programming and “information” since they were in kindergarten. My 13 year old’s classmates have been discussing what kind of sexual type they are (Gay, Bi, Pan, Omni and a slew of other opinions) for a few years now even though none of them is sexually active yet. They flip and flop on which group they think they are in and there is not only much confusion, but a lot of hostility and anger for no apparent reason. All in all they are seriously mixed up and had I not addressed this issue before the teachers and society had gotten to them, they might be in as bad a state as many of their classmates. The 7 year old has not had too much programming yet, at least as far as I can tell, but in two years I know the pressure will be put on her too.

            Morality aside, it is ludicrous that the system jams this issue down their throats at the ages they start doing it. It really seems to be placing a lot more pressure on them then seems prudent. It is bad enough that the 6 year olds already brag about how expensive and fancy their parents homes, vacations, and cars are.

    • ozone November 10, 2017 at 3:47 pm #

      Somebody tryin’ to psy-op-‘splain me? No spark, no fuel, just air.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 6:57 pm #

        There’s nuthin lower than a Berkie. Lemme guess, you wear Birkenstocks even in the winter?

      • ozone November 10, 2017 at 9:55 pm #

        Someone is in serious need of acquiring some actual skills. Disruptive bullshit just isn’t going to get it in the coming “troubles”; take that for fact, not philosophy or rigid ideology. Get off the gravy train of gum’mint-tit-minion and into a real trade. Time is short and precious.

  6. Ghung November 10, 2017 at 9:18 am #

    Clarification: The American media has OUR dicks in their hand (if we are silly enough to hang it out there).

  7. Cavepainter November 10, 2017 at 9:29 am #

    Well Epicur, I bet you also remember when there was in place a social decorum referred to as “gentlemanly” and “lady like” behaviors. That is, standards of “considerate” public behavior. Uh,…that is, not the rubric of “do your own thing” which we have today when non-conformance is a virtue unto itself. Oh damn (!), like you I’m caught not following the current dogma of gender neutrality. Guess I’ll get back in line with “I want to be different just like everybody else”.

  8. malthuss November 10, 2017 at 9:31 am #

    these guys will be joining Kevin Spacey
    + Harvey W and others = a distraction from the looting of the USA.

  9. Hands4u November 10, 2017 at 9:40 am #

    Jim I think I have finally realized why I like your writings and your site. It seems like we all want to be like or speak with the authority and knowledge of Cronkite; but we’re basically all- “A gang of moonlighting kibitzers with an opinion about what might have actually happened in the world that day, which none of them have been busy actually reporting on.” Thank you for the insight. I always enjoyed Hillerman’s ascerbic ‘brit to Selleck’s obnoxious “american can do”

  10. SteveO November 10, 2017 at 9:47 am #

    The 24 hour news channel is, and always has been, a bad idea. Let’s face it, news just doesn’t happen that quickly and there aren’t enough “news worthy” events to fill that all day all night vacuum. Why do you think Cronkite was only on for a half hour? For the most part that’s all time they needed.

    So what do they do? They aren’t going to repeat the same 30 minutes over and over all day, that loses eyeballs really quickly. Let’s have some screaming matches. It works for Jerry Springer. Let’s do minute by minute of every child that disappears. Crank the fear level to 11.

    Ted, CNN was a bad idea and should have been aborted in its infancy. Maybe then we wouldn’t have 6 “news” channels all fighting for eyeballs and trying to fill a vacuum with babblers.

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    • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 9:55 am #

      aborted in its infancy.

      contradiction in terms?

  11. marcus1 November 10, 2017 at 9:55 am #

    Interesting how you go from powerful men abusing their power assaulting women of a lower rank to those vulgar whores in Hollywood taking advantage of their sexuality to trade one favor for another.
    The difference being that is the choice of the individual perpetrator. One is bribery and the other coercion.

    The perpetrators in both cases are in wrong and possibly violating the law. Your argument is cynical. Hollywood is just a cesspool of immorality so anyone involved is getting what the asked for? Oh, and ain’t those so called “journalists” a pack of whores too?

    Meanwhile we slip further into the fascist swamp of governance with leaders doing the exact opposite of what they say they are doing and normalizing abuse and bigotry in the name of the “Lord.”

    Would have thought Roy Moore would have deserved a mention but your lord at Zerohedge may have disapproved?

    • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 10:38 am #

      Thank you for noticing, marcus1, that there’s a distinction to be made between those men who are predators, and women who live in a world dominated by predators. Sex could hardly be a tool that some women use to get ahead if we men were better than we are.

      But we aren’t; men are dogs. I’ve posted this before, but it can’t be repeated enough: open your web browser and perform two Google searches. First, search for ‘man caught masturbating in car‘. What you’ll get is a list of news stories from lots of different places about that actually happening. Then search for ‘woman caught masturbating in car‘. You’ll get a list of porn videos (ones aimed at men, obviously).

      Referring to Jeremy Piven groping a woman in his trailer, shame, shame on JHK for this: “What was she doing there, anyway?” Expecting to be treated with the bare minimum of respect anyone owes anyone else, is my guess. Jim, how dare you accuse without evidence, based on nothing more than a stereotype? Put the responsibility where it belongs: on the perpetrator. I have no doubt there are plenty of lascivious stories that could be told about well-known actresses using their wiles to get ahead. They made their choices. That in no way makes other women complicit in their own victimization when a cad decides he’s entitled to have his way.

      What the predatory man and the calculating woman have in common is men. We men, and our proclivities, are the drivers of all this. Not to see this is an elementary failure.

      • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 11:14 am #

        “Sex could hardly be a tool that some women use to get ahead if we men were better than we are.”

        “We men, and our proclivities, are the drivers of all this. Not to see this is an elementary failure.”

        ” Expecting to be treated with the bare minimum of respect anyone owes anyone else, is my guess. Jim, how dare you accuse”

        Elrond,
        I am struggling to be civil here…. What if? …elementary failure…how dare you accuse…?

        You are describing the human condition, which will not now, nor never change. You impugn the entire male sex as boorish and animalistic…instead of accepting the condition as a given and decrying individual failures of behavior….

        I see your comments…I am sorry, as platitudes. Decry a lack of civility, not basic human sexual traits.

        All women use their sex to advantage, all men are libidinous…exceptions usually involve a pathology of one sort or another.

        Even in Canada….

        • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 12:19 pm #

          “Even in Canada….”

          “MAN, n.
          An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.” – A Bierce

          😉

        • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 12:47 pm #

          Of course this is our nature — there’s no disagreement there. But:

          Roger Ebert used to like to say, every movie is really about two things: there’s what the movie is about, versus how the movie is about it. Compare Scarface with The Godfather: Both movies are about violent organized criminals, but the one is crass and vulgar like its protagonist, while the other depicts the world from within the value system of the criminals themselves and makes them seem noble and aspirational. You come away from each movie with a different feeling, when the real trick is not to be fooled: there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the vulgar Tony Montana and the preening patriarch Vito Corleone. They’re both scum.

          Now try applying that lesson to sexual politics. We’re all products of evolution, instinctively pursuing our interests as our biology prepares us to do. In the case of human beings, that leads to men visiting endless sexual attention on women regardless of the women’s own preferences: often innocently, sometimes less so, and occasionally with great brutality. (“Men are afraid women will embarrass them; women are afraid men will kill them,” observed Margaret Atwood, who has a clear understanding of human nature on both the scientific and personal levels.) Likewise, women act as they do largely because we are part of their environment, and they can’t do without us.

          You’re right, all of that is the human condition. That doesn’t make the results a good thing that should be accepted uncritically. If someone hurts me, it’s only natural for me to want to hurt them back. But under civilized rules, my urge to hurt someone who committed a crime against me isn’t justified; it’s the motive for a possible second crime, unless I control myself. It doesn’t come naturally to see our own drives and urges from without and consider them for what they are; we’ll continue to excuse ourselves far beyond the point when our guilt is obvious to everyone else. I even give Louis C.K. credit for trying to apologize to one woman and take responsibility for behavior he had to know on some level was beyond the pale; yet in the end he carried on excusing himself until the walls finally tumbled around him. (And he didn’t even remember exactly what he did; he apologized to her for doing something that wasn’t done to her, so he clearly had more going on.)

          If you’re having trouble being civil, elysianfield, because I point out that the issues between men and women are not symmetrical, that many more issues arise out of the nature of men than out of the nature of women, please keep in mind that I say what I say because bad behavior is bad behavior, whether it’s in our nature or not.

          • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 5:19 pm #

            “If you’re having trouble being civil, elysianfield, because I point out that the issues between men and women are not symmetrical, that many more issues arise out of the nature of men than out of the nature of women, please keep in mind that I say what I say because bad behavior is bad behavior, whether it’s in our nature or not.”

            Elrond, I apologize if I sounded a bit strident. What I focused upon on your post was a condemnation of well-understood human impulse. What I thought should have been commented upon would be the culture that would accept those deviations from the accepted norm with a wink and a nod.

            I believe we feel similarly towards these issues, it is but a difference in in how we define the problem…. In commentary regarding this, and other hot-button issues, words have to be chosen very carefully…and should address a very narrow spectrum of the problem.

          • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 7:17 pm #

            Apology cheerfully accepted, elysianfield, and I thank you in turn for reading my wall of text. I try not to bore, and I hope I’m not too in love with my own ideas.

            I also think we agree on this much: that wink-and-a-nod toleration of bad behaviour reflects poorly on us all. Sex is a raw and chaotic part of human nature, and people love to point fingers. The current explosion of indignation over misbehaviour that has been an open secret for years or decades may be a sign of our hypocrisy. Or, it may be a sign that we’re starting to reckon with that hypocrisy, which begins with telling the truth even if it stinks. Mucking out the stables was never going to be a clean and sunny process if it happened at all.

            Again, no doubt there are women in Hollywood with marquee names who have chosen to play the game the way it’s played. Maybe those women should be condemned. Maybe. But the game still has kingmakers on one side and supplicants on the other, and I always like to side with those who have less power against those with more.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:00 pm #

          Exactly. This is why his kind cannot be trusted with any power. They immediately ally with the Red Queens and begin to set up a reign of terror as in Sweden and soon, Canada.

      • Cavepainter November 10, 2017 at 12:23 pm #

        Balancing the innate difference between the two gender agendas is the foundation crux upon which all societies have been based and survival of our specie no less. It is an ongoing tension within all personal relationships across the gender divide as well the social order of priority (which agenda must take preeminence) in face of changing external pressure. It’s an “evolved” system of flexibility, not an either/or. Your position, Elron, is the fashionable, sentimentalized rubric of today’s Left maneuvering for temporary political capital by amplifying that innate tension into a constant rancor of legal winner/loser.

        • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 1:03 pm #

          My position, Cavepainter, is a principled one. The principle involved is simple: people have a right to be secure in their persons and free from coercion. If you think I’m engaging in some kind of moral relativism that blows with the winds of political fashion, you’re not thinking very straight.

          • janet November 10, 2017 at 1:38 pm #

            “The principle involved is simple: people have a right to be secure in their persons and free from coercion.” –elrond

            *thumbs up*

          • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 5:31 pm #

            “The principle involved is simple: people have a right to be secure in their persons and free from coercion.”

            Elrond,
            If you would repeat that comment as a wish, I then would agree with you. The reality, of course, is now, as it has always been, is otherwise. Were you to state that people should have that right, I would find no issue.

            I think perhaps part of my problem with your offerings is that you tend to state absolutes…and absolutes are unobtainable in real life…too much wishful thinking, not enough realpolitik.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:07 pm #

            Since men are the approachers, the human species would die out if you had your way. Should men ask permission before they talk to a woman? That’s talking to her. Or ask permission before even looking at her? How does he even know he wants to look until he looks?

            Look Elrond: If a woman likes you and/ or your approach, you’re alright. If she doesn’t, you’re a creep and/or predator. That’s the way they are: they see life in binary terms. That a man should enable and empower them in this, to the extent of changing law and policy to match their prejudices is simply disgraceful.

          • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 7:35 pm #

            elysianfield: I see where you’re coming from. I take strong positions in part because I’m so much in opposition to quite a few people around here. But it’s not bad to have principles and stick to them. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, I’d rather err on the side of excessive zeal than on the side of moderation in defense of principle (my principles). I know perfection will never be achieved, and since I’ve heard of Stalin I know where excessive self-certainty can lead as well. I’m just trying to shift the boulder in my preferred direction.

            Janos: Of all the observations you’ve ever made this is one of the ones that I agree with. On the other hand, you’ve made many, many statements expressing deep contempt of women that I find distressing. Sex is not P.C.; that’s an inescapable fact. I’m not P.C. either, although you like to portray me that way. I really do see what I say as a matter of principle, not fashion. You and I are very similar people in many ways, but as I see it, where we differ sharply is this: you embrace a lot of unspoken human instincts as natural and wholesome, whereas I see them as natural and harmful. Don’t expect me to change my mind, as I don’t expect you to change yours.

          • Cavepainter November 11, 2017 at 7:54 pm #

            Crap Elrond! As social animals consensus opinion is relentless in “coercing” us toward what might be called “considerate” behavior. Among adolescents its known as peer pressure, more clinically it’s known as socialization/assimilation. It can be either ennobling or lead to abject mob behavior.

        • GreenAlba November 10, 2017 at 9:01 pm #

          @Cavepainter

          “Your position, Elron, is the fashionable, sentimentalized rubric of today’s Left maneuvering for temporary political capital by amplifying that innate tension into a constant rancor of legal winner/loser.”

          I am absolutely and utterly in agreement with Elrond’s posts, and as a woman (not a young one in any danger of harassment) I’m also grateful to him for expressing his views with such eloquence and patience. Some of the misogynistic views expressed on this site are distressing and depressing.

          My father was from the solidly working-class east end of Glasgow. He was born in 1910 and left school at 14, as most working class boys of his era did. He did eventually go back to ‘night school’, in order to better himself, marry and have a family. He did not think according to the ‘fashionable, sentimentalized rubric’ of anything at all. Like most of his peers, he was simply brought up to respect women and he did so, throughout his life. He did not have the education that Harvey Weinstein benefited from, or that the members of our own UK parliament had who are currently accused of inexcusable behaviour towards their female colleagues.

          Young men in this country are currently speaking out and shaming these old men, saying they themselves know how to treat women, so what’s wrong with these dinosaurs that they don’t know.

          I wouldn’t allow the Harvey Weinsteins – or lesser creeps – even that excuse. If a man born in 1910 doesn’t need to be told how to behave towards women, a man born in 1960 has zero excuse. To claim otherwise is to insult all decent men.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 9:23 pm #

            Women must learn how to respect men as well. Life is a two way street, Albie.

          • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 10:53 am #

            ” Like most of his peers, he was simply brought up to respect women and he did so…”

            GreenAlba,
            …culture, culture, CULTURE!

      • SpeedyBB November 10, 2017 at 10:12 pm #

        Think with dick. Dick hath no brain with which to think. Just a lot of drive.

  12. finuch November 10, 2017 at 9:56 am #

    As Malthuss states: “…a distraction from the looting of the USA.”

    I would add it’s a distraction, too, from the ongoing wars the American government runs in every country of the globe.

    Yesterday, the WSWS had an interesting article on the colossal cost of Washington’s unending wars, IMO, essential reading.

    “Sixteen years of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria have drained $5.6 trillion from the United States economy, according to a new study entitled “Costs of War” released by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.”

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/09/pers-n09.html

    • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 10:20 am #

      At the bottom of the expense ledger may be profit.
      Cost of war? who is making money on it?

    • Anon1970 November 10, 2017 at 3:18 pm #

      And from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, an earlier projection of the costs of the Middle East wars (Iraq and Afghanistan): https://research.hks.harvard.edu/publications/workingpapers/citation.aspx?PubId=8956

      The young Americans who were wounded in the wars and are now collecting disability benfits (medical care and monthly checks) may be around for another 40 or 50 years.

      I don’t think it is a question of if the financial system implodes, only when. “When” will come sooner if the US gets involved in another costly ground war.

    • SpeedyBB November 10, 2017 at 10:17 pm #

      Be interesting to know just where a powerful stream of that loot is being diverted to.

      Just as the corrosive war on Viet Nam supercharged Japan’s economy. (in case you did not notice).

      Let me guess…

    • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 7:32 am #

      That could have paid for a whole lot of college education, job training, excellent day care and pre-schools, music, art and all the rest that schools jettison to save money etc. More important to bomb other countries into the stone age and support the bloated Pentagon I guess……..

  13. SteveO November 10, 2017 at 10:01 am #

    I worked as an engineer in the aerospace and defense for about 15 years starting in the 80s. At the time, sexual harassment charges were ripping through the industry. All the old stories about bosses chasing the secretaries around their desks, Roger Ailes style, were true. They even used lines like “do you take dick-tation”. It’s “the scarlet letter”. Once you have harassment on your record, you’re done, might as well drive a taxi because you’ll never be an engineer again.

    The industry became, and still is, so over sensitive to such things that many of us are afraid to say anything that might be considered the most remotely offensive to anyone. It has created a paranoid that makes the workplace less enjoyable than it already is.

    It looks like the entertainment industry is finally grinding its way down to where my industry has been for 30+ years. I guess it’s not going to be as much “fun” as it once was to be a Hollywood or New York power broker.

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 10:24 am #

      I had a very good boss in those days but he was a bit of a comedian and a bit outrageous. Not your average engineering manager. A woman in the manufacturing department accused him of being sexually inappropriate not long before he left for another job. I knew two things on hearing the news before hearing any details.

      1) That the charge probably had a ring of truth.

      2) That my boss understood what the word NO meant.

      Bob was a Louis CK type but he had an inner respect for everybody and the moment he knew he was making someone uncomfortable he would clean up his act. I knew he had a good nature despite his inherent impishness. He was a good boss because he genuinely cared about people.

      Sometime after Bob left this same woman applied for a job as an engineering technician in our department. When I interviewed her I made sure I was not alone and I left the door to the office wide open.

  14. 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:07 am #

    Louis CK is a certifiable creep. How many times does his “comedy” veer off into the realm of the sick and depraved, especially involving children?

    He’s a ginger creep hiding behind “comedy”.

    • 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:18 am #

      But since Terry Gross (worst interviewer ever) does a Stale Air segment with CK every 3 months, well, he’s the choice for the not-so-smart people that need to believe they’re smart people, that haunt NPR.

      I’m sure a new piece is forthcoming.

      • pequiste November 10, 2017 at 10:31 am #

        I would like to suggest a more appropriate name for the Gross interview program you mention: Asphyxiation.

      • cbeard November 10, 2017 at 12:34 pm #

        I’ll second the motion on Terry Gross being the worst interviewer ever.

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 10:28 am #

      There is something funny about a comedian directly asking for sex. They are always trying to get a rise off of somebody. Now we find the joke was in CK’s hand! I don’t think kids were allowed at his shows.

      • 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:41 am #

        Just watch any CK special. About 2/3 through any given one he wades into more or less pederasty or child violence.

      • ZrCrypDiK November 10, 2017 at 11:38 pm #

        You know (yes you do) I saw Peter Gabriel in concert, circa ~’86. Shock the monkey, gets hurt?!? *MONKEY*

        Yeah, we had 3rd row seats – Pete dived out into the crowd (‘surfin’), he barely made it back with his briefs/boxers?!?

        Heh… TRUTH OUT.

    • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 3:22 pm #

      who is that? some NPR person?

    • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 4:30 pm #

      I watched as Louis C.K. soared to the top of the comedy world, and friends of mine find him absolutely hilarious (I’m thinking of one friend in particular, who is likely reassessing her opinion in light of new information). I never felt it myself, for whatever reason — and yes, the grossness was a real turn-off, but that was after I had already decided he wasn’t for me.

      From the sidelines, though, I always appreciated how he used comedy as a vehicle to explore the kind of dark impulses grownups keep on a short leash. Turns out he had impulses darker than most of us suspected.

    • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 7:33 am #

      I’d never even heard of Louis CK. So glad I’m pretty much oblivious of MSM “entertainment”. No TV. Would rather read a good book any day.

  15. Walter B November 10, 2017 at 10:08 am #

    “The transformation on the cable networks especially has been insidious.”

    Indeed it has Jim, they have bloated their own egos to Hindenburg proportions and are now suffering the same fate as that doomed gas bag. Those of us who have been around long enough and can recall watching small TV’s on Summer nights until they played the Star Spangled Banner and then ran test patterns until morning. are far more likely to understand the limited value of this media. We understood that sleep was more important than non stop entertainment and that the kidney stone you would pass overnight or the new development that was going up down the street would have a far greater impact on your life than some talking head spewing fill- in trash. The degradation of all of the entertainment world is not unlike the three hour football game you watched with your Dad on Sunday afternoon that has morphed into a 24/7/365 orgy of worthless pre-game, post-game, fantasy game crap. No wonder that people are finally starting to realize that it is all a bunch of worthless bullshit. Perhaps there may be hope that they will wake up and realize that their own lives, the lives of their children, their neighbors and their communities are far more important and require a lot more of their attention than these big screen con artists.

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    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 10:39 am #

      Walter I fear wishful thinking.

      “Perhaps there may be hope that they will wake up and realize that their own lives, the lives of their children, their neighbors and their communities are far more important and require a lot more of their attention than these big screen con artists.”

      You do have the disclaimer of ‘may’ but if there was an ice cube’s chance in hell that people would spontaneously wake up with their values correct and their heads on straight we would have already done so long ago. Rather like water, attitudes and understanding rise to the lowest possible of all levels. One thing that strikes me about humanity is our total ineptitude in understanding and operating in ways which serve our best interest.

      Can’t we all just get along? Looking at some of what goes on, or more properly, is permitted to go on, right here in these comments the answer is naaaaaaaaaaaah. Aint gonna happen.

      • Walter B November 10, 2017 at 10:53 am #

        The possibility of hope is certainly slim, but even the government fears it above all. That is why they monitor us as completely as possible and work on ways to improve and expand their abilities. They fear that we will awaken to the screwing they are giving us and try to do something about it- of course we won’t. One of the biggest advantages the sellouts have over us is the NIMBY principle, Not In My Backyard, or “Me first, screw you”. The propagation of this mindset in America will assure that the only “uniting” we do is deviant in nature.

    • ozone November 10, 2017 at 10:41 am #

      Walter B,
      Nicely put.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:14 pm #

      I read a book about Western Ireland, which got TV very late. They had a culture where neighbors could just drop in on each other unannounced and would then talk for hours. The Irish American author said the TV destroyed all of this. Once gotten, the TV was always On. He dropped in on his neighbor to talk and he could see him watching a Quiz Show out of the corner of his eye even as pretended to talk. They just couldn’t value what they had until perhaps much later, when it was already long gone.

      • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 7:37 am #

        Indeed. I don’t remember a world without TV but I see the impact that CABLE, video games, the Web and all of it’s social media etc. has wrought so I assume these are similar in terms of their propensity to cut people off from others and engage them in often mindless screen activity. I do remember a time when one might engage with others while traveling. Now people are just looking at their screens on buses, trains, at the airport etc. Who wants to engage with a stranger when one can read their Facebook feed I suppose?

  16. 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:12 am #

    This is obviously a generational thing. Nobody under 50 paying attention ever trusted or put much stock in the US media.

    The old folks that picked up newspapers at the end of their driveways and watched Dan Rather at 6:30… well, they just can’t get over the fact that they’ve been manipulated all those years.

    A pity.

    • Walter B November 10, 2017 at 11:29 am #

      Yes it is a pity, but true and the grifters and scammers utilize this “trust” at every opportunity. Once Social Security sells your information for profit, the phone calls. emails. and mail defrauders assault us with great gusto. They count on the programming to still hold and it does for far too many. I was fortunate to be blessed with enough situational awareness to understand that as I grew up watching the Vietnam War unfold all the while being told how it would be my turn to fight there someday was bullshit. I did not need Walter Cronkite to keep me informed and formulated my own plan to avoid destruction yet still comply with my duty as an American. Today I find that working together with a great bunch of young men and women and being involved in my diverse community keeps my mind sharp and grounded in reality. I see far too many old timers in our Senior Club being taken advantage of and preyed upon for profit. We must hang together or we shall surely hang separately.

  17. Q. Shtik November 10, 2017 at 10:16 am #

    It also figures you would say that. I remember how you and others got your computer. You told me years ago. The claim you made was that all you had to do was visit the list of suppled websites and get involved. Veterans getting free computers. A nice story but I know there is more to it. – K-Dog

    =============

    The above was written by Dog early this morning at the tail end of the prior blog thread.

    My response: Dog, you absolutely positively must have me confused with someone else. I never got a computer any other way than the usual way…i.e. walking into a store and buying it. Anything nefarious concerning me residing in your mind is the result of an over active imagination.

    • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 10:22 am #

      don t kick the dog.

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 10:54 am #

      Or my steel trap memory. I don’t think I am wrong but I will positively accept the fact that I may be and therefore accept your denial despite being accused of an over-active imagination. (I think there is supposed to be a dash in there.) This would absolutely mean that someone else made that statement because it did happen. I do NOT make shit up.

      For those totally confused, which will be almost everybody who has not been hanging around for a full decade, the claim was made here at one time that many of the ‘trolls’ were not really trolls but new veterans who had been given free computers in return for visiting a list of websites and participating in comments. The author of this claim (who I accept may have been a different Q) went to lengths to explain that none of the veterans were told what to write at the websites in any way. Once screened by the qualifying questionnaire they were free to write anything they wished.

      I actually do have an over-active imagination but if it were over active-enough to supply the details I recall I would be very pleased. I’d have novels published by now.

      • Q. Shtik November 10, 2017 at 11:19 am #

        many of the ‘trolls’ were not really trolls but new veterans who had been given free computers – Dog

        ============

        My discharge date was April 15, 1965. Does that qualify me as a new veteran?

        I began to follow this CFN blog and to write comments in the summer of 2008. That would be 43 years after my discharge.

        As one of the most technically inept people on the planet (I could not even operate a VCR back in the day, and can barely use a cell phone today) it is absurd that I would be selected to troll for the government/deep state.

        • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:37 am #

          Ah my lower post posted before I saw that you had written this.

          You I believe!

          Not being unfamiliar with such things, technically I am a computer engineer, it would not be difficult from time to time put a man in the middle and send an out of character comment to a single recipient. A recipient receiving special attention (direct harassment) because he had been snooping around and had threatened operational security. This could be done for a variety of reasons, all of which would be intended to manipulate the subject. A big reason would be to corrupt trust. Not all manipulation would be spotted as easily as an out of character response that would be seen as being off in the Ozone of course.

          I recall you were posting out of the LA area back when I followed such things. If I’m wrong about that I admit that is the sort of detail I might not recall.

          • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:39 am #

            That’s what I remember, or think I remember, from the revolver map records.

          • Q. Shtik November 10, 2017 at 12:59 pm #

            I recall you were posting out of the LA area back when I followed such things. – Dog

            ==============

            Everything I have posted on CFN (or any site for that matter) has been done from the chair I am sitting in at this moment right here in central NJ, 2 miles from Rutgers Univ’s football stadium.

        • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 5:34 pm #

          Q,
          Remember the joke about the airman caught with his dick in his hand during formation? Yeah, dishonorable discharge….

      • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 12:25 pm #

        “Or my steel trap memory.”

        I’ve got one of those, but it’s bad rusty. I used to try to keep it well lubricated with beer, but my ticker has got to complaining too much these days.

        Gather ye rosebuds…

      • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 9:26 pm #

        You thought I was in Olympia. Where did you get that idea? I’m in the East of Eden.

        Life is a series of renounciations. You have to renounce the idea that you have a good memory. Maybe you once did. Or maybe that’s a false memory as well….

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:22 am #

      And if you are sincere that also supplies a piece of the puzzle. Forgive me for looking at things from all angles.

      I also remember you defending me as a friend to this blog in times past.

      • Q. Shtik November 10, 2017 at 11:45 am #

        You ARE a valuable part of what goes on here but that doesn’t mean perfect.

        • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:58 am #

          Pleased to say I don’t claim to be. My head is made of meat.

          • ZrCrypDiK November 11, 2017 at 12:20 am #

            That sounds totally *SOCK PUPPET*… Vlad near teh perimeter?!>,,….

          • K-Dog November 11, 2017 at 12:03 pm #

            But you KNOW I am not a Sock Puppet for we have talked. 🙂

            I have not heard that term for a while.

          • ZrCrypDiK November 12, 2017 at 10:27 am #

            werd – I can’t reply to that poast – but I CAN! Vlad definitely on teh perimeter… English/Metric!

          • K-Dog November 12, 2017 at 5:52 pm #

            “Young T.A.O. hackers are lucky to make $80,000 a year, while those who leave routinely find jobs paying well over $100,000, cybersecurity specialists say. For many workers, the appeal of the N.S.A’s mission has been more than enough to make up the difference. But over the past year, former T.A.O. employees say an increasing number of former colleagues have called them looking for private-sector work, including “graybeards” they thought would be N.S.A. lifers.”

            I’d imagine ‘troll’ pays less.

  18. Zoltar November 10, 2017 at 10:22 am #

    NPR used to have correspondents all over the world doing in-depth investigative reporting, and going after the bad guys in power. Now they blab with whatever guest talking heads don’t happen to have anything to do today, and open the lines to listeners to waste our time.

    During our NPR affiliate’s recent fundraising drive, their chief local reporter mentioned that he is mystified as to why polls show ever diminishing trust in journalism. I guess he has never noticed that on a given day there is little overlap and certainly no agreement between MSNBC, Fox, and alternative sources of news on any sort of shared reality.

    Doh!

    • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 10:23 am #

      Nonsense. NPR always was disinformation, wrapped in a green or red wrapper.
      Amy Goodman discovers Mumia.

    • 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:38 am #

      Eleanor Beardsley and her straining over-pronunciation doesn’t do it for you?

      Poggioli?

      NPR truly believes that their nuanced bias (for the untrained ear I suppose) isn’t detectable. That is until you start with a morning full of smug from David Green, the Bawbwa Wawa of radio (his shtick is to get musicians to cry), or his cornball counterpart Inskeep, who host the morning opinion hour.

      Lakshmi Singh, the only person that seems to know how to read straight news most of the time is relegated to news briefs.

      When is the last time that NPR has taken up a story from the perspective of the people that they detest, lower middle class and working class whites, without being entirely belittling and dismissive?

      But a transgender immigrant clown on the birthday juggling circuit? They are so misunderstood, and only NPR can bring their story.

      • Ricechex November 10, 2017 at 11:29 pm #

        Ha ha! So true 100th! I listen to NPR because I prefer it to talk radio, but it is extremely biased!

        Besides transgender immigrant clowns, they also feature story after story on oh so victimized illegals and the various horrors and transgressions they experience. For instance, taking away their free child care subsidies and how this will bring down the country. Well, at least CA farmers are gonna suffer according to NPR. I believe I first heard “non-citizens” on NPR.

        In the last year I have heard an upsurge in “good Muslim” pieces (sometimes several in a day), in which Muslim’s of limited privilege and new immigration status, maintain their culture and religion and yet rise to the top with hajibs on head and write books about their suffering growing up here.

        I could go on and on……but I will stop here….already hijacked the thread!

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:00 am #

      National Petroleum Radio fair and balanced?

      Once a bastion leaning strongly towards liberality GWB cleaned the place out and turned it into a bastion of conservative corporate propaganda. Many of us, I know there are others besides I, used to love NPR but now can’t turn the dial or push a button fast enough if we hear it. It is disgusting. Once it tended to be fair now it is bullshit.

    • Epicur November 10, 2017 at 12:30 pm #

      When I (not too often) listen to “All Things Considered” this line usually pops in my head:

      “the
      moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy”

      https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/cambridge-ladies-who-live-furnished-souls

  19. malthuss November 10, 2017 at 10:24 am #

    What does the president of NPR or PBS make a year?
    Does the woman –if I recall—PBS prez was making half a million a year, years ago?

  20. pequiste November 10, 2017 at 10:25 am #

    “Spanking the monkey” as in needing a new letter to add to the LBGTQPIN spectrum of sexual proclivity schemas? B2DSM?

    Today’s “news” product is specifically tailored to make the viewer less informed by being more “educated” on the subject being presented. Much like the mission of American public schools.

    Everyone in America today, whether they like it or not, knows who the Kardashians or Caitlyn Jenner are, but I’ll bet that 97%, or more, of the populace could not even guess who John Jay, Chang Kai Shek, or Frederick the Great were.

    Anderson Cooper is a journalist?

    A created media personality — a wellborn, rich gay man, TV presenter, whose most important and timely interview was with Honey Boo Boo. That was and continues to be today’s version of American TV “news.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGItWrfYUHs

    Have any of you picked up a Time magazine lately? Henry Luce must be spinning in his grave.

    The mass media’s power in emptying minds and then filling it with nonsense, or worse – toxic sewage, is staggering. See your local listings for professional sports, game shows, pornography and soap operas for details.

    The only people getting jerked off are the people who watch, read or engage with today’s “legacy” media in America.

    Edward Bernay’s is smirking from his position in Perdition.

    * Not intended to be racial pejoratives against Asian peoples.

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    • 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:42 am #

      Keep in mind that Cooper didn’t throw himself out of the closet until it was clear that the axe was going to come down on him. Now he has 9 lives…

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 11:01 am #

      Is PETA going to be pissed?

    • elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 11:26 am #

      “Frederick the Great”

      Pequiste,
      Don’t be ridiculous…even in the state college I attended we studied the great man…he was the guy that did that thing….

    • Walter B November 10, 2017 at 12:33 pm #

      The children these days are being handed Time Magazine for Kids in public schools. These mini-mags extoll the virtue of adding insects to the American diet just like they doing in poor countries around the world. After all, there will only be enough meat for the wealthy some day. I kid you not, my daughter brought one home a couple of years ago:

      http://time.com/3830167/eating-bugs-insects-recipes/

      Of course they cover all of the social programming, I’m sorry, I meant “issues” because after all, the Hitler Youth WAS successful, was it not?

      And I think that it is only fair that we add onto the LBGTQPIN to include Chronic Masturbators with either a CM or just an M. By such inclusion surely this “minority’s” ranks will swell (no pun intended) to boost them into majority status.

      • pequiste November 10, 2017 at 1:25 pm #

        Fine idea Walter. However, let me suggest that since an acronym is greatly served by vowels to help articulate the synthetic construction of the letter string; might I propose an “O” for Onanism.

        I’d bet a nationwide contest to come up with the best arrangement for the sexual schema letters made up into a word would be a great way to ease the tensions from this year’s bumper crop of sex perverts and tawdry tales.

      • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 3:27 pm #

        Thanks. On You Tube there is a guy raising crickets as human food.
        He is jewish.
        And the comments, gesus.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:21 pm #

      Anderson lit up like a Christmas Tree when he was told one of his ancestors was killed by his slave. He loved it! Gays are too strange and have no commitment to their nation or heritage to ever be trusted.

      The high point was him wandering around Tahrir (sic) Sq during the Arab Spring as if it was Woodstock. Someone punched him in the head. He’s lucky he didn’t get raped like Lara Logan.

  21. 100th Avatar November 10, 2017 at 10:51 am #

    Poor Higgy-baby is dead. Robin Masters was the man’s man. Private, respectable, nonjudgmental, refined, educated, loyal (a veteran), and a friend to the end.

    In other words pure fiction.
    That is why he is missed LOL

    • Raindogs November 14, 2017 at 2:43 pm #

      Jonathan Quayle Higgins III is one of my favorite characters of all time.

      I’m not even sure vile Hollywood could even write a classy character of his ilk these days.

  22. wet dog November 10, 2017 at 10:59 am #

    Like the others above, I’d really like to know what the hell is going on in Saudi Arabia. If money is flowing freely as usual and all is hookers and booze, why then the Chaos?

    One possible reason: when you have depraved people running a show, eventually it all begins to implode on itself. And that’s what the Saudi ‘royals’ are, depraved to the max. They make perverts like Weinstein and Spacey look like amateurs.

    These people start to implode when real pressure starts being applied. Something is happening behind the scenes, monetarily or spiritually, that is causing massive disruption.

    It reminds me of the deep state antics of the last US election, the tug and pull between sides in the deep state. When you put your trust in demons, eventually they pull the rug on you.

  23. Phutatorius November 10, 2017 at 11:28 am #

    I think Philip K. Dick had it right when he had the “news clown” Jim Brisken anchoring the nightly news while wearing a bright red wig, and later had him run for President – as I seem to recall, though my recall from those days is less-than-total.

  24. volodya November 10, 2017 at 11:32 am #

    The PBS Newshour made me laugh. They had a segment on Russian election meddling where they breathlessly reported that 126 million Americans were exposed to Russian messages on social media.

    ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SIX MILLION!!!

    Surely then this demands an election do-over. The Russians subverted American democracy. The Trump presidency is the evil spawn of the Kremlin and its diabolical leader. Trump is an illegitimate president. Surely everyone can see this. OUT WITH TRUMP.

    Ok, but somebody from the DNC or the exalted New York Times better have a talk with Twitter’s general counsel Edgett, who obviously isn’t getting the memos. He testified that Russian-linked accounts represented .012 percent of total Twitter accounts, that election related tweets coming from those accounts represented .74 percent of all election related tweets, that of 131,000 tweets coming from a known Russian troll farm during the campaign, 9 percent were election related.

    On the Facebook side of things, Facebook raised 27 billion dollars in ad revenue last year. The presidential election cost about 2.7 billion dollars. Trump and Clinton spent 81 million dollars on Facebook ads. The Russian devils spent about $100,000 for ads on Facebook. Given the mega-buck world of Facebook and election spending, is anybody daft enough to think that $100,000 is enough to catapult Trump into the White House? The social media world is swimming in behemoth sized volumes of money and ads and messages. These Russian numbers are ant-sized.

    Now, we all know that Progressives are data and evidence oriented. At least, that’s what they tell us. But this evidence doesn’t add up to an election result bought and paid for by Vladimir Putin. It doesn’t add up to squat. These pissant numbers are evidence of nothing, at least nothing like a social media world infused with Russian propaganda and fake news as portrayed by Democrats and their allies. The more the Democrats beat this drum, the more they look like they lost the election fair and square. The faster the Democrats shut up and move on the better off they’ll be.

    • K-Dog November 10, 2017 at 12:13 pm #

      Koch family trolls could have influenced the election as much or more than Russian ones or perhaps even the Coke company itself (no relation). Citizens united don’t you know. Things have to be put in perspective. Was there Russian influence, yes there was. Was it important, no it was not. Why are people still talking about it, because the country has lost it’s collective mind. If we had not gone all electronic kiddies could play with trains sets this coming Christmas. The tree can be decorated with Saudi princes hanging as ornaments. Hanging from nooses, but some fall to the ground, headless. At one time they would have fallen by a new train set. This year it would have been an oil train set. Instead it will be a gift-card Christmas.

      • volodya November 10, 2017 at 12:29 pm #

        Perspective – exactly.

        If the Democratic Party insists on learning nothing, that’s up to them. The Republican Party is more or less the same, they still insist that a country gutted of its productive capacity is a good thing, that American citizens should bear the resultant hardship quietly.

        As you said a while back, Kansas isn’t buying Republican bullshit anymore. I’m not so optimistic about Democrat supporters. They still seem to not comprehend that there’s a hierarchy of needs, that while standing up for bathroom rights is all fine and nice, people have got to eat, three times a day, every damn day and they need to pay the damn rent every month. And that means everybody including women and gays and blacks.

        Or, as Brecht said, grub first, then ethics.

        • janet November 10, 2017 at 2:12 pm #

          “while standing up for bathroom rights is all fine and nice, people have got to eat, three times a day, every damn day” –volodya

          I think all that eating may have something to do with going to the bathroom… but I’m not sure… correlation is not causation, as they love to say.

        • malthuss November 10, 2017 at 3:29 pm #

          V,

          It was B Clinton who signed NAFTA and gave China Inc ‘MFN status.’

          —your,
          The Republican Party is more or less the same, they still insist that a country gutted of its productive capacity is a good thing.

        • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 4:39 pm #

          volodya: “Or, as Brecht said, grub first, then ethics.”

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnD6hHj7g0s

          • pequiste November 10, 2017 at 6:38 pm #

            Well done Volodya and Elrond.

            Threepenny Opera classic.

            Have you heard the inimitable Tom Waits’ version?

  25. elysianfield November 10, 2017 at 11:41 am #

    U. S. Marine Corps…Happy Birthday!

    Semper Fi

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    • janet November 10, 2017 at 2:12 pm #

      Semper Fi

  26. volodya November 10, 2017 at 12:03 pm #

    The Democrats better watch out with all this talk of contacts with Russians. The Brothers Podesta are up to their alimentary canals in Russians and Brother John was chairman of Hillary’s presidential campaign.

    If you want collusion with Russians, you have that preposterous file of documents on Trump, which were used to smear Trump, using information from Russian sources and paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Of course everyone involved claims to know nothing, NOTHING.

    Why do the Democrats suddenly have amnesia? It’s because they’re guilty of the accusation they’re pointing at Trump – colluding with Russians to tilt the outcome of the campaign.

    • akmofo November 10, 2017 at 12:15 pm #

      Hillary is the Russian agent.

  27. teddyboy46 November 10, 2017 at 12:11 pm #

    another great essay. JHK is one of the very few that tells it like it really . I find it amusing that these actress were shocked, shocked that influential and wealthy men would make sexual advances to them. like that has never happened to them in their entire lives.

    The question I ask and I really have no answer for is where is the line between very rude behavior and sexual assault?

    • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 1:07 pm #

      Re: ‘shocked, shocked’: That’s called the “she was asking for it” defense.

      When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton is said to have replied “Because that’s where the money is.” How well did that go over at his trial?

      • San Jose November 10, 2017 at 6:41 pm #

        I’m not familiar with who Louis C.K. is, because I’ve never listened to his comedy or seen him in any movie. But now he is apparently claiming that he asked various woman if he could show them his penis, before he whipped it out.

        Really? What a rude and disgusting question. Call me naïve, but that is a shocking question.

        If I were in charge of the world, I would require everyone to take a class called “Good Manners 101.” Until you mastered the class, you have to stay in your room.

        Jen in San Jose

        • Elrond Hubbard November 10, 2017 at 7:46 pm #

          Yeah, you’ve gotta wonder about a person who even does that to begin with. And if they were capable of doing that already, think what happens after they achieve success, prestige, and power, and people are afraid to push back.

          The difference between Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K.? Weinstein has a long track record of covering his tracks via lawyers, paying people off, hiring private detectives, etc.. Meanwhile, C.K. seems to have apologized at least once and has released a statement admitting to everything. There’s hope, then, that he could still be redeemed.

        • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 7:41 am #

          I guess I’d ask him for a magnifying glass if he pulled that one on me.

    • GreenAlba November 10, 2017 at 9:10 pm #

      “The question I ask and I really have no answer for is where is the line between very rude behavior and sexual assault?”

      Could I perhaps suggest that ‘very rude behaviour’ is something you might be excused for when you’re about 14, but not much older?

      • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 11:11 am #

        “something you might be excused for when you’re about 14, but not much older?”

        GreenAlba,
        Excellent observation. Ahhh, 14, lack of maturity, lack of judgment, lack of common sense, few responsibilities…What, me worry?

        Scratch most male adults, and you will see that same 14 year old hiding under a thin skin. In your self-admitted advanced years, you must have noticed this (as have I, even recently in myself). In my dotage, it is not a question of maturity, but rather judgment(think “errors of”)….

        I don’t condemn Louis CK…I never thought him a pederast…just as a comic pushing the envelope.

  28. volodya November 10, 2017 at 12:52 pm #

    We’re not going to go to an entertainment world of Lawrence Welk. Remember Lawrence Welk? No? He gave the world “champagne music”. Moms and dads could turn on his show on the TV with their kids and not be mortified. Seriously.

    The entertainment world was never clean anyway. But I wonder if maybe the slith-fondlers of both sexes in Hollywood will just stick to slith-fondling between takes and lay off the lecturing.

    • pequiste November 10, 2017 at 6:45 pm #

      Ah, wunnerful, wunnerful! Welk’s signature theme “Bubbles In The Wine” – another soundtrack fave of nuclear triad (bombers, submarines and missle) crews on alert.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jaosn-LkOjw

    • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 11:40 am #

      Volodya,
      Not be mortified? Did you ever Look closely at Sissy and Bobby?

      In my then fevered imagination (remember 14), both had obviously screwed their way to the top. Filthy unsubstantiated rumor had it that Sissy was a cankered whore who consorted openly(and shamelessly) with Welk on the set…Bobby, again, in an unsubstantiated rumor, was a crazed homosexual who dispensed “favors” to any stagehand of like mind(and there were many)…and was later identified as “patient #1” of the AIDS epidemic.

      How could you watch without recoil?

      • volodya November 11, 2017 at 12:12 pm #

        I got dosed with Lawrence Welk every week. This was back in the days when Dodge was the sponsor and then Geritol. But I never watched Cissy and Bobby that closely. Mind you, we had a real old black and white TV and sores wouldn’t have shown anyway. Not with a pound of make-up, that’s for sure. Funny about the Welk-Cissy thing, I don’t remember hearing a peep, though maybe they practiced a few dance steps together. Who knows. As far as appearances went they looked squeaky-clean to me.

        I looked up Bobby. Maybe he’s gay but according to Wikipedia he married Myron Floren’s daughter (Myron was the accordionist) and had four kids.

        My mother had great hopes that I’d be the next Bob Lido or Myron Floren. No chance.

        A wahn an’ a two…

  29. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 1:20 pm #

    The basis of the Clinton system of the Deep State is the impossibility to prosecute its protégés, that is, the nomenklatura.

    For example, the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the election, with the total control of her nomenklatura over the polling stations, is connected with the fact that several FBI officers, while investigating the case of child pornography, had found on the computer of husband of Hillary closest helper Huma Abedin correspondence of Hillary Clinton from the secret server that she allegedly erased.

    But apart from this correspondence, they found on it the video of her husband, Bill, having fun with teenagers and Podesta, the head of her election campaign, involved in ritual sex with minors.

    What is especially interesting to me is that Podesta is really a descendant of Enrico Dandolo, the main organizer of the Fourth Crusade, whose artistry in Constantinople captured by the “crusaders” are very reminiscent of the descriptions of Podesta’s actions on the so-called Island of Orgies, where Hillary Clinton traveled twice since 2013.

    Then the FBI investigators came to their director Comey and offered him either to open the Clinton case again, or to see the records on the Internet. And Comey announced the opening of the Clinton case 3 days before the election, and Hillary blames her loss for that very thing.

    And the main actress taster Weinstein was Clinton’s overseer for Hollywood, set by the Clintons to collect tax-money into their fund and his exposure is undoubtedly a retaliatory strike by Trump.

    And I would not be surprised if at the close examination it turns out that he supplied “meat” for the brothel on the Island of Orgies ala movie “Eyes Wide Shut”, since in the movie world rumors have long been circulating that the nomenklatura for ritual sex requires accomplished actresses who are craved by millions, and Weinstein could blackmail them with video recordings of his entertainment with them since the beginning of their creative career.

  30. DurangoKid November 10, 2017 at 1:29 pm #

    Anyone recall Henry VII? After the Battle of Bosworth Field, he rewrote English history to make Richard III the bad guy. Then he turned around and spawned Henry VIII.

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    • FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 4:02 pm #

      King Henry VIII tore the Church of England from the clutches of Catholicism before the Western Black Project managed to digest it.

      This made the Church of England virtually identical to Orthodoxy in the field of religious philosophy…

      http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/memorium-harvey-weinstein/#comment-323231

      • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:30 pm #

        Anglicanism as Orthodoxy? Bullshit. If Catholicism diverged, Anglicanism is a further divergence. They reject the Mass as a Sacrifice and turn it into a common meal.

        • GreenAlba November 10, 2017 at 9:14 pm #

          I’m not an Anglican (or a Catholic), Janos, but I think what you mean is that non-Catholic Christians have turned the eucharist into a symbolic ritual, rather than a ‘common meal’.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 9:30 pm #

            Same thing. If the bread is just bread and the wine just wine, then the eucharist is Just symbolic and thus the meal is just common.

  31. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 1:33 pm #

    But Trump’s main victory is that as a result, American society acquired immunity to sexual exposures that did not work with Trump a year ago and did not work a couple of days ago when Judge Roy Moore of Alabama was accused of sexually entertaining with a teenager 30 years ago, clearly showed that public opinion polls about the fall of Trump’s popularity, to put it mildly, were greatly exaggerated.

    And the women accusing elderly people who preach a moral way of life of violating their “innocence” 30 years after the “fact” and false public opinion polls are the cornerstones of the foundation on which the deep state of the Clinton nomenclatura stands.

    As a result, a significant part of the Republican Party without waiting for Trump’s command demands the dismissal of the special prosecutor Mueller, investigating Trump’s links with Russian bears.

    They accuse Mueller of a conflict of interest and belonging to the Clinton’s nomenclatura on the grounds that it was Mueller who put the case of Hillary’s connections with the same Russian bears allegedly buying up all of US uranium.

    It came to the point that they already called the above-mentioned investigation an attempt at a coup d’état, and this is an open preparation for armed resistance in the event of its success. And readiness for armed resistance is the best guarantee that it will not be needed. Another is the lack of fear of being accused of sexual harassment that happened 30 years ago.

    Two powerful sources of Hillary Clinton influence, her favorite weapons no longer exists.

  32. Catconspiracy November 10, 2017 at 1:46 pm #

    Wow learned the news about Louis CK from CFN. I really have weaned myself from the MSM apparently. So did a quick catch up.

    NY Times with almost 2000 comments was largely pro Louis. Defending, deflecting, oh wasn’t that bad, not a crime, etc. Stephen Colbert, a particularly unfunny guy, said virtually nothing. Hmmmm.

    I’ve known about how disgusting Louis CK is for many years. I laughed a few times at his lovable loser schtick, but then as his popularity grew so did his deranged demented comedy. After his divorce it really got worse, making jokes about his daughters standing at a bus stop to catch a ride to school, while he passed by waving at them from his limo.

    It’s understandable women did not come forward to report this to higher ups as they were threatened with retribution. Louis CK’s behavior was tolerated. Club owners, television producers, movie directors all failed to act or protect these women.

    What does Hollyweird instead focus on? Gun control. Gun violence is no where near the problem of the tsunami of pederasty abroad in the land. It’s minor compared to sexual predation, violence, sex trafficking, child trafficking, and pedophiia.

    The problem doesn’t remain just a sexual crime either as these acts are recorded used as blackmail against the participants to extract all kinds of further criminal acts. Happens in business, schools and government.

    Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Jermey Piven, the creeps from Fox News, Ailes, O’Reilly etc., Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton, all were all given a pass on their behavior for years. These men are not common lotharios. They are not incurable romantics. The thrill for them was unconsensual and violent predation. The desire to cause fear and distress. Nothing to do with having a relationship with these women. These predators knew they could get away with this behavior. All given a pass and protected by those who knew.

    I saw a trailer for Louis CK” movie, now cancelled from it’s November 15 release. “I Love You Daddy” is so gross and filled with pedophilia and incestuous references I was moved to shout a few “Boos” out loud in the theater. I do not usually behave this way. There is no loss to humanity that CK’s film will not be released.

    As far as blaming the victim goes….Yes it was a mistake for the young starlet to go to Jeremy Piven’s trailer. Just as it was a mistake for 15 year old Jennifer Lawrence to stip naked for a casting call. Or any other young person to be allowed to be alone with known sexual deviants. Shirley Temple more than suffered her share of predation from the age of three. The whole industry is this way. What is coming out now is not an aberration. It’s totally the way the film industry and many other work places are. And the parents are complicit, I do not blame the women. They are victims. Get with the program JHK.

    I’ve had an idea in my mind for a while on the solution to many problems involving sexual harassment of women in the military and the workplace. It will be to stop hiring women at all. Let them stay safe at home. Just hire a tranny. Problem solved.

    • romanmanner November 10, 2017 at 3:20 pm #

      What will solve this is to stop treating women like they’re made of glass.

      Stop offering excuses, and instead encourage women to report harassment and assault immediately. How many women did Weinstein, O’Reilly, etc. target because their prior victim was conditioned by society to hide and cry instead of get angry and report the violence?

      Woman have a duty to each other and society to report their attackers. And don’t give the sob stories about ‘how difficult that is.’ Of course it’s difficult, that doesn’t mean it isn’t the right thing to do.

      • pequiste November 10, 2017 at 4:06 pm #

        Harvey Weinstein got away this his predations because no man in Hollyweird had/s any sense of honor. It is a word that does not exist in their lexicon.

        A “real” man; husband, boyfriend, father, would have cleaned the scumbag’s clock upon receiving a loved one’s report of an assault – and also would have gladly suffered the economic and legal consequences of doing so.

        The stars and “leading” men only play at being heroes and ironically get paid lavishly to do so. In Tinseltown, it is exclusively about the $$$,$$$,$$$ and power. Always has been.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBe93FMiJc

        “You have meddled with the primal forces of Nature Mr. Beale…”

        The same ( honor, principles and ethics vacuum) also applies to Wall Street and Baghdad on the Potomac, just more so.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:35 pm #

          Apparently Brad Pitt threatened Weinstein when he started bothering Angelina Jolie.

      • San Jose November 10, 2017 at 7:09 pm #

        As a woman, I’ve had more than a few uncomfortable encounters with men. I always think back, “How could I have handled this better?”

        When I worked at HP Labs there was this engineer who always called me “sweetie” instead of Jen. I told my boss that it made me feel uncomfortable and he put a stop to it. The guy came back at me–basically saying that I’d ruined his career, etc. He asked me why I didn’t ask him directly to stop the “sweetie” talk.

        Just last month, I was picking up a pizza for my family in Willow Glen (high-end, San Jose neighborhood). I’d paid for it and was waiting for it to come out of the oven. I sat on the bar stool nearest the cash register and became immersed in a football game. Out of nowhere, this stranger comes up from behind me and hugs me, and asks me what kind of beer he should get. I told him I don’t drink beer. Even today, remembering that hug still gives me the creeps. On what planet do you have the right to sneak up on someone and hug them?

        I have other, more dreadful stories. But my gut response to these kind of situations is to de-escalate. In sum, don’t turn a horny guy into an angry, horny guy.

        Jen in San Jose

        • Ol' Scratch November 10, 2017 at 9:30 pm #

          On the flip side, there might have been 10X that number of guys who might have wanted to approach you, but were too intimidated to try. Can’t really say one way or another without knowing your actual circumstances, but just saying… Point is, guys – men! – have “challenges” too, which might very well result in “inappropriate behavior” from time to time, especially when the definition of “inappropriate” is constantly shifting. In addition, alcohol(!) certainly magnifies those effects. No surprise there.

          But in general, unduly vilifying men’s sexual urges, especially when you want to make it retroactive to 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago or more, is NOT going to lead to good outcomes. Wanna step up to leadership positions women. Well, here ya go! HANDLE IT!

      • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:34 pm #

        Women who give sexual favors have a huge edge over women who don’t in this most competitive industry. It shouldn’t be so, but it is. Likewise, women sell their bodies during famine. It can and should be cleaned up – but the evil will grow again.

    • Robert White November 10, 2017 at 7:49 pm #

      JHK has gotten with the programme in so far as he is a writer with an opinion that he rightfully expresses. JHK does not play dog whistle politics or practice virtue signalling so one should not expect him to fall in line with so-called social progressive attitudes commonly evidenced in left-of-center politics promulgated by the MSM. Moreover, the hysteria of cultural programming with respect to human sexuality in the 21st century is as mindless as JHK purports it to be in the article. I get his points in opposition to the fascist hysteria surrounding mainstream media depictions of what is, and is not, acceptable human sexual behaviour in an MSM perspective of contemporary society.

      RW

      • Catconspiracy November 11, 2017 at 11:04 am #

        Hello RW,

        My terse “Get with the program JHK” was a bit on the rude side, My apologies. I should have offered more explanation of my meaning. I should have said “Get with your own program JHK”.

        For sometime I have followed how Kunstler’s World Made By Hand series is covered by feminists.They are not happy, but curously find the time to bother to be bothered. Why not just dismiss him outright?

        Here’s link and a quote.

        World Made By Bigots

        https://leavingbabylon.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/world-made-by-bigots/

        “Women continue to play no political, commercial or other notable roles in the community of Union Grove. Men are in charge, and the book moves, by and large, from one male-dominated scene to another. Women are deferential, quiet and soft-spoken, flutter in and out, and their endowments are duly oggled. Their voices mostly come through shadowy, unreal, unimportant to the scenes where the real action is. This is the world of women as helpmeets, not partners. That, and the huge contrast between the new slate of characters above tells a lot about the author’s agenda and the resentments he may be burdened by and/or caters to.”

        Kunstler discusses this reaction in an essay in Peak Prosperity

        Class, Race, Hierarchy and Social Relations in the Long Emergency

        https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/82508/class-race-hierarchy-and-social-relations-long-emergency

        The essay addresses the feminist reaction to his female characters finding themselves somewhat voiceless in matters of commerce and government, and the need to retreat to the home to focus on the considerable amount of work to be done to keep food on the table, clothing on backs, and the heat going. Kunstler proposes, guesses, he says, that there will be a regression to an almost feudal state of affairs in the not so very distant future. Date yet not determined.

        Initially when i saw the portrayal of women in his books I was quite po’d,. Sorry rude again! I decided I would protest by just ignoring Mr. Kunstler for a while. Lo and behold as years passed and I saw the changes happening I warmed up to these ideas. I found myself aggravated with how women are indeed often focused on shopping, gossip and a lot of quite meaningless garbage. Wasting precious time and resources on utter bullshit (See Women’s March on Washington for incontrovertible proof). All this a serious obstacle to facing facts about the future. I feel quite ashamed of my own sex. A walk through a Macy’s department store I found nauseating. Yet like the housing market, retail spending is a major economic engine of our world at this time. This is not going to last. Last time in our local Macy’s the shelves were half empty. (Full disclosure I am one hell of a shopper.)

        Getting long winded on this point…..will try to cut to the chase.

        When I read the line disparaging the starlet heading to the trailer with her everything bagel and chipotle cream cheese, or was it jalapeño?, I was annoyed. JHK I thought was on the side of women needing protection, the protection of parents who escort them places until they knew better than to yield to such invitations. Or the protection of the men in their lives not putting them in compromising positions. To a person the female actresses who have been taken advantage of have been abandoned by their parents or even pimped by their parents. Abandoned by adult men who no longer give a damn about their well being. In A World Made By Hand things are different. Women are not equal, but they are precious and treated that way.

        Last night on the PBS News Hour there was a panel of women presented by Judy Woodruff, who I greatly admire. She was asking what is needed to change the workplace so sexual harassment does not happen. They all said more women had to get into more positions of leadership. No amount of sexual harassment training has made a dent. More women had to rise to the very top. Damn didn’t these women get the memo? Did they not witness the recent election? it is my view, despite her gargantuan flaws, the main reason HRC lost the election was because she is a woman. The glass ceiling will not be shattered anytime soon. Women are heading back to home and hearth. Again when JHK depicted this in his novels it annoyed the hell out of me. I have come to accept it. May women in the future accept this state of affairs with grace.

        • Robert White November 11, 2017 at 2:53 pm #

          I’m a Canadian that likes JHK’s writing for the way he zeros in on the minutia of contemporary political finance discourses to extract for the reader some semblance of perspective that is grounded in the zeitgeist of his life. In brief, JHK is all about one man’s perspective of witnessing the world. He is in essence, ‘the man on the omnibus’ that we can reference just in case our references need to be double checked on issues. I reference JHK for attitude, style, creativity, imagination, and opinion. If he characterizes women in one particular way with respect to contemporary society and his writing, we can assume that he is doing so in order to make the reader think twice about what he is saying. In other words, JHK is a writer first and foremost, and he trolls his readers to engage their thinking along lines of the general ideas he comes up with. This is not to say that he would not change his writing, and characterizations of women, if he wanted to make an entirely different point of observation. Like all good writers he toys with his readers so that he can experiment with words & ideas going forward. That’s how I see him, and I sincerely doubt that he is sexist, or a closet misogynist that would want to undermine the goal seeking behaviour of women on any level. JHK is just a guy that plays with words in order to elicit thought, writing, and discourses, methinks.

          If I was entitled to vote in the USA I would vote for Elizabeth Warren in the next election. On the last election I was rooting for Jill Stein and NOT ‘the enabler’ Tammi Wynette Clinton who stood by her man, Bill, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman Monica Lewinski, Clinton.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 4:05 pm #

          Women run Sweden and much of Scandanavia in fact. Recently some of the Leaders of Sweden visited a Mosque. They were veiled and bowed to the Imam as they entered..

          Case closed. Women want to look up to Men. If White Men can’t keep them in line, they’ll find Men who can. Enter the psychology of the Shit Test. All of Feminism was basically a Shit Test that Western Men failed. Google it. Basically it’s a leading question that women use to test men. They want to be old no and are disappointed when they get their way. Rinse and repeat like a Maytag, endlessly until you get a Sweden.

        • Cavepainter November 11, 2017 at 8:05 pm #

          Oh my God; here again is given anecdotal evidence to be taken as basis for drawing broad generalizations re the sexes. Look, the evidence is that within any human population there are very predictable ratio of personality pre-dispositions that come to be expressed in either egregious or beneficial ways — that is, whether or not it/they prove asset or detriment in facing external pressures.

    • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 7:49 am #

      So not that I want to blame the victim or excuse the predatory behaviors being outed, but many women(and girls) can act in a way to prevent being victimized. Mayim Bialik wrote a piece that got her blasted by many but I think she made many valid points.

      Again, as a woman I am not at all trying to suggest that any woman who is assaulted was asking for it. I know too many women who were attacked and raped; they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, Ms Bialik does make good points in terms of how women dress, present themselves etc. As well, choosing to meet with a man, especially one known for sexual misbehavior, in a private setting is clearly risky. Just what did they suppose would happen there?

      While I hate the fact that women always seem to be the ones having to control men’s behavior and believe that men need to be taught to police their own behavior, there is much that a woman can do to prevent assault by not putting themselves in situations with such men. As well, any woman who chooses to sleep their way to the top has only herself to blame for her choice. Yes, it often works but using one’s talent and intellect to get ahead is still an option.

  33. pequiste November 10, 2017 at 2:01 pm #

    I can hardly believe that one of Hollywood’s great, poignant films, “Network,” is over 40 years old and could not be more salient today.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug

    Like the man says ” ….but first you’ve got to get mad.”

    • akmofo November 11, 2017 at 7:12 am #

      No, you don’t get mad, you get even. You don’t get emotionally involved in the propaganda, you tune it off and boycott it, and you do what is in YOUR power to afflict these gov mafia fscks with bankruptcy and extinction.

  34. romanmanner November 10, 2017 at 3:09 pm #

    I was thinking on this subject earlier in the week. It dawned on me the Fox, MSNBC, CNN, et al are no longer news networks; they are simply political commentary networks.

    Even that characterization is generous, as the commentary offered is incredible predictable and lacks any real insight. I know exactly how Fox views the proposed tax cuts: they are big enough, they don’t help your boss who you must view as your master. CNN: “Trump sucks!,” and that’s about it. How the talking heads on that channel haven’t killed themselves from the incessant chatting on one subject for two years is the real story. MSNBC: well, it’s a punch line for progressive hand-wringing and identity politics.

    I have to turn to the wires themselves for news. The AP gives facts, BBC, though obviously left-leaning, at least provides substantive stories.

    No society can long continue like this; representative government of any sort requires, if not an educated populace, at least an informed one. The America of today cannot be characterized as that.

    On a lighter note: I would love to hear what starlet did what to get the part 🙂

    • FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 3:56 pm #

      I was thinking on this subject earlier in the week. It dawned on me the Fox, MSNBC, CNN, et al are no longer news networks; they are simply political commentary networks.

      Really?

      Have it dawned on you that they are simply Bastinda’s Flying Monkeys who shill for extremely generous compensation?

  35. pentrus November 10, 2017 at 3:55 pm #

    I love the last line: “Maybe it’s the American news media that actually has its dick in its hand.” It is difficult to describe just how much I enjoy the words Mr. Kunstler puts together in these posts. Even when they are ribald they are right on the mark. Keep it coming, it makes me chuckle in the face of all the absolute nonsense the media spouts every day.

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    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  36. Robert White November 10, 2017 at 4:06 pm #

    When Professor Emeritus Sigmund Freud visited America back in the 30s he wanted to see Coney Island to catch a glimpse of the circus like hysteria the USA had on offer at that juncture in history.
    He left America with the impression that most Americans were extremely regressive with respect to human sexuality, and he held out no hope that they would ever mature over time.

    In contemporary America we can now flip the TV channel to CNN to watch discussion on masturbation & sexual psychopathology throughout American culture. Frankly, I honestly believe that Freud
    would be inspired by it were he still alive and theorizing about the human condition as he once did approximately 120 years ago.

    RW

    • Janos Skorenzy November 10, 2017 at 7:38 pm #

      At one point Freud was trying to procure a teenage girl for a middle aged friend who had taken a fancy to her. Old Vienna was a very different place than the modern West. And Freud, a Jew who hated Western Culture, was something even more alien.

      • Robert White November 10, 2017 at 7:59 pm #

        I am well versed in terms of Freud historiography and I, for one, can assure all that Freud never ‘tried to procure’ any human being for anyone. No bit of the historiography indicated any type of behaviour like that. There are still works & private letters on embargo in the Library of Congress that are supposed to be released to the public, but don’t hold your breath waiting for it anytime soon.

        RW

        • ozone November 10, 2017 at 10:16 pm #

          Robert White,
          Do you mean to imply that Janos (formerly lots of other monikers, including my favorite, “vladdie the laddie”, and paid DOD disruptor and blog disturber) is, in contemporary terms, “full of shit”, and has nothing of value to contribute to this space? I’m reduced, I tell you, reduced… and my trust in the value of his employers is compromised beyond redemption (or even the usual bribery)!

          Will I ever learn to trust again?? …..I hope not.

          • malthuss November 11, 2017 at 10:25 am #

            You are aptly named, Mr Hot Air.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 2:04 pm #

            Paid DOD disruptor? Says who? That’s just your fantasy, Berkie. you slanderer.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 2:58 pm #

          Let’s start here, Bob. All roads lead to Rome as they say – and Freud’s boyhood hero, Hannibal, the Enemy of Rome.

          Despite this contempt — or perhaps because of it — Portnoy continues his sexual relationship with his shiksa, “The Monkey.”

          Was this at all motivated by revenge fantasies, though? In fact, it becomes easy to argue that it is because Roth himself tells us so. In passages related to the Quiz Show scandal of the 50s, the author inserts a scene into the book that portrays a naked, viscerally anti-goy animus:

          I was on the staff of the House subcommittee investigating the television scandals. . . . and then of course that extra bonus, Charlatan Van Doren. Such character, such brains and breeding, that candor and schoolboyish charm — the ur-WASP, wouldn’t you say? And turns out he’s a fake. Well, what do you know about that, Gentile America? Supergoy, a gonif! Steals money. Covets money. Wants money, will do anything for it. Goodness gracious me, almost as bad as Jews — you sanctimonious WASPs!

          Yes, I was one happy yiddel down there in Washington, a little Stern gang of my own, busily exploding Charlie’s honor and integrity, while simultaneously becoming lover to that aristocratic Yankee beauty whose forebears arrived on these shores in the seventeenth century. Phenomenon known as Hating Your Goy and Eating One Too.

          • Q. Shtik November 11, 2017 at 5:46 pm #

            In a later scene, however, the brilliant Portnoy, having just recited a famous poem, reveals to his blonde lover (“The Monkey”) the name of the poet — William Butler Yeats — but immediately realizes “how tactless I had been, with what insensitivity I had drawn attention to the chasm: I am smart and you are dumb . . .” Later, Portnoy happens upon a note she has written and responds: “I am just face to face with my first specimen of The Monkey’s handwriting. A note to the cleaning lady. Though at first glance I imagine it must be a note from the cleaning lady . . .”

            dir willa polish the flor by bathrum pleze & dont furget the insies of windose mary jane r

            Portnoy reads the note three times, finding new meaning with each reading, the most significant of which he describes:

            Oh that z, that z between the two e’s of “pleze” — this is a mind with the depths of a movie marquee! And “furget”! Exactly how a prostitute would misspell that word! But it’s something about the mangling of “dear,” that tender syllable of affection now collapsed into three lower-case letters, that strikes me as hopelessly pathetic. . . . This woman is ineducable and beyond reclamation.

            Despite this contempt — or perhaps because of it — Portnoy continues his sexual relationship with his shiksa, “The Monkey.” – a quote from Portnoy’s Complaint

            ===========

            Is it any wonder I am obsessed with spelling and grammar? To allow ourselves to look like low class low life idiots?

      • janet November 11, 2017 at 1:42 am #

        And Freud, a Jew who hated Western Culture… –janos

        And Janos, an antisemite who does not understand that it was Freud who formed Western Culture. Freud’s ideas permeate deep into Western culture. Rarely does a day go by where we don’t find ourselves uttering a term drawn from his work: Mommy and daddy issues. Arrested development. Death wishes. Freudian slips. Phallic symbols. Anal retentiveness. Defense mechanisms. Cathartic release. And on and on and on. Freud did not hate Western Culture. Freud informed Western Culture.

        Freud also had an unquestionably powerful impact on American culture. Turn on the TV and Joan from “Mad Men” is suffering from “hysteria,” and Brian from Family Guy is trying to uncover whether urinating on the floor is an act of subconscious aggression. Or, there’s Tony Soprano’s psychoanalysis sessions, etc.

  37. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 4:43 pm #

    Links for those with basic English skills:

    New Cold War Is Built on Being Uncontainable
    https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/23577/russia-s-strategy-in-the-new-cold-war-is-built-on-being-uncontainable

    U.S. AND EUROPE ARE DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS USE PROCEDURES AT RUSSIAN BORDER, RUSSIA’S DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS
    http://www.newsweek.com/us-europe-developing-nuclear-weapons-russian-border-707943

    Washington Scores A Victory In Battle Over North Sea Pipeline
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2017/11/09/washington-scores-a-victory-in-battle-over-north-sea-pipeline/#2689591021b1

    Mitt Romney Tells Roy Moore To Step Aside: ‘I Believe Leigh Corfman’
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/mitt-romney-tells-roy-moore-154710491.html

    Federal judge tosses suit, says FBI did all it could on Clinton emails
    https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/9/federal-judge-fbi-exhausted-search-clinton-emails/

    ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS ARE LESS RELIGIOUS AND DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO THE POPE
    http://www.newsweek.com/orthodox-church-catholics-religion-pope-split-707936

    Russian defense minister raises concern about NATO buildup
    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/10/russian-defense-minister-raises-concern-about-nato-buildup.amp.html

    Is Trump Next Suspect in Russia Investigation? Mueller’s Questioning Reaches Top Aide Stephen Miller
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-next-suspect-russia-investigation-154707691.html

    Man at heart of Clinton ‘dirt’ claim disappears
    http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/11/10/professor-misfud-robertson-pkg.cnn

    Is Russia’s Submarine Force Dying a Slow Death?
    http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-submarine-force-dying-slow-death-23141

    Russia hits back at US request for RT to register as foreign agent
    http://thehill.com/policy/international/359693-russia-hits-back-at-us-request-for-rt-to-register-as-foreign-agent

    CHARGES AGAINST FLYNN BRING TRUMP INTO MUELLER’S CROSSHAIRS
    http://www.newsweek.com/charges-against-flynn-bring-trump-muellers-crosshairs-702625?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=right&utm_medium=related2

    U.S. RISKS ‘COUP’ IF MUELLER INVESTIGATION CONTINUES, REPUBLICANS WARN
    https://www.newsweek.com/us-risks-coup-if-mueller-investigation-continues-say-republicans-706421

    Why Did Putin Launch 4 ICBMs? Because He Can, Czech General Says
    https://www.defensetech.org/2017/10/30/putin-launch-4-icbms-can-czech-general-says/

  38. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 4:45 pm #

    Links for those with basic English skills:

    New Cold War Is Built on Being Uncontainable
    https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/23577/russia-s-strategy-in-the-new-cold-war-is-built-on-being-uncontainable

    U.S. AND EUROPE ARE DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS USE PROCEDURES AT RUSSIAN BORDER, RUSSIA’S DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS
    http://www.newsweek.com/us-europe-developing-nuclear-weapons-russian-border-707943

    Washington Scores A Victory In Battle Over North Sea Pipeline
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2017/11/09/washington-scores-a-victory-in-battle-over-north-sea-pipeline/#2689591021b1

    Mitt Romney Tells Roy Moore To Step Aside: ‘I Believe Leigh Corfman’
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/mitt-romney-tells-roy-moore-154710491.html

    Federal judge tosses suit, says FBI did all it could on Clinton emails
    https://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/9/federal-judge-fbi-exhausted-search-clinton-emails/

    ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS ARE LESS RELIGIOUS AND DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO THE POPE
    http://www.newsweek.com/orthodox-church-catholics-religion-pope-split-707936

  39. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 4:46 pm #

    Russian defense minister raises concern about NATO buildup
    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/10/russian-defense-minister-raises-concern-about-nato-buildup.amp.html

    Is Trump Next Suspect in Russia Investigation? Mueller’s Questioning Reaches Top Aide Stephen Miller
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-next-suspect-russia-investigation-154707691.html

    Man at heart of Clinton ‘dirt’ claim disappears
    http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/11/10/professor-misfud-robertson-pkg.cnn

    Is Russia’s Submarine Force Dying a Slow Death?
    http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-submarine-force-dying-slow-death-23141

    Russia hits back at US request for RT to register as foreign agent
    http://thehill.com/policy/international/359693-russia-hits-back-at-us-request-for-rt-to-register-as-foreign-agent

  40. FincaInTheMountains November 10, 2017 at 4:47 pm #

    CHARGES AGAINST FLYNN BRING TRUMP INTO MUELLER’S CROSSHAIRS
    http://www.newsweek.com/charges-against-flynn-bring-trump-muellers-crosshairs-702625?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=right&utm_medium=related2

    U.S. RISKS ‘COUP’ IF MUELLER INVESTIGATION CONTINUES, REPUBLICANS WARN
    https://www.newsweek.com/us-risks-coup-if-mueller-investigation-continues-say-republicans-706421

    Why Did Putin Launch 4 ICBMs? Because He Can, Czech General Says
    https://www.defensetech.org/2017/10/30/putin-launch-4-icbms-can-czech-general-says/

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  41. Ol' Scratch November 10, 2017 at 8:21 pm #

    A reminder of simpler times from the one of the recently departed, when men were men and women were women, and no one questioned the differences and mutual attractions between the two:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4vJM4L2D2U

    • Ol' Scratch November 10, 2017 at 9:04 pm #

      Tom Petty and Traveling Wilburys’ heir apparent Jeff Lynne sings semi-longingly and all-too knowingly of an Evil Woman in this masterful solo rendition with piano accompaniment:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-7vfDbkDhU

      Ahh, those were the days!

      • ozone November 10, 2017 at 10:28 pm #

        Ol’ Scratch,
        Just fer funzies — Now tell me here (from a small glimpse at the perpetrators fingers), what’s the key? …After all, it’s gotta be simple enough for Robert Z to play along with. {Excellent tune anyhoo.}

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMVjToYOjbM

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 4:06 pm #

        Traveling Wilburys? You fags.

  42. KesaAnna November 10, 2017 at 11:10 pm #

    ” When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton is said to have replied “Because that’s where the money is.” How well did that go over at his trial? ”

    — Given that , ” “The police need you to be a witness against yourself. They have nothing. They want everything. And they want YOU to provide ALL the evidence. ” —

    — Given that , the state gets to search your house, but you don’t get to search theirs —

    — Given that , lawyers typically are $500 – dollars – an – hour , but even the typical person with post-graduate degrees does not —

    — Given that jury selection consistently weeds out jurors who have any actual familiarity with the realities and subtleties of the legal system , and consistently picks out jurors whose knowledge of same is superhero cartoons , and , young – lawyers – in – love – type TV shows —

    — Given that the Miranda warning says , ” Anything you say can and will be used AGAINST you ” , BUT does NOT say , ” Anything you say can and will be used FOR you ” — And that there are good reasons why it DOES say the former , but DOES NOT say the latter —

    — Given that , in 50+ years , I can count on one hand the number of times “principled ” and “moral ” types have pointed out the above —

    — Given that police and court budgets are not uncommonly gigantic , but public defender budgets are typically a fucking joke —

    — Given that your attorney gets one crack at a witness , but the states attorney gets two cracks at a witness —

    — And so on , and so on , and so on ,

    Anything that Willie Sutton says is likely to be a bad move.

    And if Willie Sutton were the Virgin Mary , and innocent , but never the less said , ” Because I was an asshole , and I’m heartily sorry ! ”

    He is STILL almost certainly going to get fucked BECAUSE he SAID ANYTHING .

  43. KesaAnna November 11, 2017 at 1:12 am #

    ” I’ve posted this before, but it can’t be repeated enough: open your web browser and perform two Google searches. First, search for ‘man caught masturbating in car‘. What you’ll get is a list of news stories from lots of different places about that actually happening. Then search for ‘woman caught masturbating in car‘. You’ll get a list of porn videos (ones aimed at men, obviously). ”

    I don’t so much see data or evidence here , so much as a context.

    Men masturbate in public and women don’t — I’m not sure what that indicates — Just like I’m not sure what men have penises and women have vaginas indicates — Just like I’m not sure what Japanese typically have brown eyes , while Swedes typically have blue eyes indicates — Just like I’m not sure what one person favors there right hand , while another person favors their left hand , indicates.

    So I’ll skip that.

    Presumably , there is something bad in being SEEN masturbating ?

    Since , however , apparently , you never actually saw any of this public masturbation , it is still bad that , though you didn’t see it , you KNOW it occurred ?

    If the above two things are true , THEN I SEE NO DIFFERENCE HERE WHAT – SO – EVER.

    Some men are homosexual , and / or like anal sex , so it would , I suppose , be incorrect to label dildos, vibrators, and strap-ons , as a female – only phenomenon.

    But they sure as Hell aren’t a male- only phenomenon.

    Now my guess is that most people who have shared bedrooms , living rooms , kitchens and such like , in enclosed space , with other persons , long term , know that it is really hard to keep secrets under such circumstances …..

    Secrets like ; your dildo , vibrator , or strap -on.

    I saw a person masturbate when I was 6 years old , and did not , in fact, know what I was looking at .
    And so , I suppose, if I had encountered a dildo , I would not have surmised its purpose and meaning .

    So it is entirely plausible that even having seen , a 6 year old would not really see , and would not know , anyway.

    It is not at all plausible to me , though , that the same would hold true for a 10 year old or 12 year old.
    I did not see anyone masturbate , age 9 to 15 .
    But I did again encounter sex toys at age 10 , and I DID surmise what they were for , and subsequently surmised WHY they were there , what had occurred there , and most likely involving specifically who.

    This is to say , in fact , women are caught masturbating in public all the time.

    It depends on how you define “public ” .
    You might not define as public the domicile where I am obliged to live , but I do.

    The key word to me is ” obliged ” . I’m obliged to inhabit this domicile , no less than I am obliged to walk down this street, or obliged to enter this grocery store, because otherwise there is no practical alternative to starvation.

    And as I indicated above , WITHIN domiciles, there is little , or nothing , that is NOT public.

    ” Practical ” is also an important word as I see it. Nine times out of ten , if I see a guy masturbating in a car ( by the way , Why am I peeping into his car ? Is the interior of his car a compelling interest of mine ? ) I can walk away , and forget the dude.

    Such a strategy is far more problematical in the other case.

    Women ARE caught masturbating in public all the time , it is just not CHARACTERIZED that way.

    Just as a mountain of data suggests pedophilia is roughly the same percentage among women as among men —

    — While , yes, arrests and prosecutions of women for sex crimes have exploded —

    — It sure seems to me that the sexual misconduct of women is still markedly de -emphasized.

    Why ?

    Well, the obvious solutions here are to introduce police into homes in the same way and to the same degree as on a public square.

    ( Actually you are , in every way that really matters, already doing this . And some of you , apparently , genuinely wonder why your society is so fucked up. As a citizen of the defunct DDR , some times I can only laugh that you flatter yourselves that there is a difference. )

    Another is to subject EVERYONE who is obliged , or more importantly , expresses a desire to , change diapers or bathe a child , to a background check , a psychological work-up , the works.

    But , generally , you DO still have some sense when it comes to MONEY.

    And child care , actually , still is not a significant priority.

    You aren’t handing out medals for diaper – changing , and the pay is shit , so there is little to be gained in pointing out the perversities in female sexuality.

    That is one theory anyway.

    • Elrond Hubbard November 11, 2017 at 11:51 am #

      I do think the two-Google-searches constitute evidence of something, and I’ll explain what and why.

      Why first: Google searches are based on relevance. They have scanned the web, scored the content of each page they find, and counted the number of hyperlinks that point to those pages so that every hyperlink is a kind of “vote” for that page. So Google searches are evidence of what’s relevant, at least in terms of what’s on the web.

      Now the what:

      KesaAnna: “Presumably , there is something bad in being SEEN masturbating ?

      “Since , however , apparently , you never actually saw any of this public masturbation , it is still bad that , though you didn’t see it , you KNOW it occurred ?”

      I really don’t know whether women masturbate in public (and therefore make the news when they get caught) more often than men. I do know that it’s generally frowned upon, so getting caught doing it is a sign of a lack of self-control. I’ve (thankfully) never encountered someone masturbating who wasn’t a sex partner. But there are laws in most places against doing it in public, so when it does happen in public, it tends to make the news, which ends up on the web. The Google searches tell me there are men so lacking in self-control that they get caught. What about women? I can’t compare, because any women getting caught in that situation are completely swamped by porn, directed at male tastes and male fantasies.

      All in all, this doesn’t tell us much about women one way or the other. But it says this about men very clearly: some men lack self-control, and huge numbers of men are interested in sexual fantasies about women. If women were more similar to men in that way, the results would show that, but they don’t. Therefore men are implicated in a way women aren’t.

    • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 12:05 pm #

      “Women ARE caught masturbating in public all the time , it is just not CHARACTERIZED that way. ”

      “Just as a mountain of data suggests pedophilia is roughly the same percentage among women as among men —”

      ” As a citizen of the defunct DDR ”

      I KNEW IT! Commie Masturbators!

      Kesa,
      In all respect, what are you saying? I am having trouble following your comment…almost stream of consciousness….

  44. Buck Stud November 11, 2017 at 1:14 am #

    Hitler’s paintings were mentioned the other day in positive fashion and it’s true: he was actually very good although his style of art was aesthetically marginalized in the early part of the 20th Century.

    Most of his efforts are more like ‘colored drawings’ than true painting but in this effort Hitler rises above illustration into something suggestive and ethereal:

    https://i2.wp.com/www.historyinanhour.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Hitler-painting-2.jpg

    • akmofo November 11, 2017 at 8:42 am #

      There’s a deep melancholy in that drawing. Very lonely and lifeless. It’s like staring transfixed at death with her smiling enchanting back at you.

    • akmofo November 11, 2017 at 9:16 am #

      Some belly dancing musak to uplift the spirits from this death scene

      Aris San – Dam Dam – https://youtu.be/-nQOfaW6ziM

  45. janet November 11, 2017 at 1:46 am #

    And Freud, a Jew who hated Western Culture… –janos

    And Janos, an antisemite who does not understand that it was Freud who formed Western Culture. Freud’s ideas permeate deep into Western culture. Rarely does a day go by where we don’t find ourselves uttering a term drawn from his work: Mommy and daddy issues. Arrested development. Death wishes. Freudian slips. Phallic symbols. Anal retentiveness. Defense mechanisms. Cathartic release. And on and on and on. Freud did not hate Western Culture. Freud informed Western Culture.

    Freud also had an unquestionably powerful impact on American culture. Turn on the TV and Joan from “Mad Men” is suffering from “hysteria,” and Brian from Family Guy is trying to uncover whether urinating on the floor is an act of subconscious aggression. Or, there’s Tony Soprano’s psychoanalysis sessions, etc.

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    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 2:12 pm #

      Jewish psychoanalysis sexualized the West from above and Jewish pornography sexualized America from the bottom. The middle could not stand against this two fold assault – not once Hollywood fell. Free porn on the internet finished the job.

  46. janet November 11, 2017 at 2:31 am #

    Hannity said he would not want his 14-year-old daughter dating a 32-year-old. I wouldn’t either. Would you?

    Roy Moore must go.

    • KesaAnna November 11, 2017 at 3:37 am #

      Uh …….what ?

      ” He doesn’t want his daughter dating ANYONE. ” might make some sense.

      What does he mean by “dating ” ?

      If dating is merely a prelude to fucking , then , if the 32 year old is Jack the Ripper , and the 14 year old is Jesus Christ , then , yeah , the 14 year old girl is wise to fuck the 14 year old —

      — kinda , sorta , maybe?

      Uh………

      If dating is merely hanging out , exchanging ideas , cultures , and such , then , with all due respect to 14 year olds , youth is a transient stage , it is of transient utility , and
      there is little for a 14 year old to learn about the world they will soon be joining from another 14 year old.

      So it was in my experience.
      Fast – forward to the reunion 30 years later.
      The girls who were flirting with the teachers, if not now nice people , if not now people with 100k jobs , were still worth touching base with again. Were worth driving three hours to speak to again.

      The girls who only spoke to other girls , and turned their noses up at the old farts ?
      They were still fucking stupid 30 years later.

      Maybe that’s the idea ?

      I don’t know who Roy Moore is , but if Hannity said , “it’s a nice day ” , I would be getting my galoshes and umbrella .

      • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 12:09 pm #

        “If dating is merely hanging out , exchanging ideas , cultures , and such , then , with all due respect to 14 year olds….”

        For a 14 year old male, dating is anything but what you describe…you cannot fathom the fevered angst of dating at puberty.

  47. KesaAnna November 11, 2017 at 4:11 am #

    Given that your country exports a lot of fun – with – horses – porn ,

    And I remember incidents like the media being saturated with Jon Bennet Ramsey , so that people would tune in to see the Coke commercials and Chevrolet commercials ,

    At the risk of being banned by Mr. Kunstler , I would assert without caveat that anyone who suggests this country is remotely concerned with the welfare of young girls is a God damned liar.

    • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 12:19 pm #

      At the risk of being banned by Mr. Kunstler , I would assert without caveat that anyone who suggests this country is remotely concerned with the welfare of young girls is a God damned liar”

      GDL here. The laws are written. The prisons are full. The majority of parents are concerned. Are you suggesting that the laws and sanctions are not effective(perhaps not)? The culture of our generation speaks to concern for their welfare. Do not most parents want the best for their children? Why would our host find your comment objectionable?

      Your English is excellent.

  48. Pucker November 11, 2017 at 5:04 am #

    There’s an article in “The American Lawyer” encouraging lawyers who are fed up with the cut throat practice of law to become politicians to satisfy their career ambitions.

  49. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 7:49 am #

    Interesting links about science and culture:

    The universe shouldn’t exist, scientists say after finding bizarre behaviour of anti-matter

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/universe-exist-cern-universe-matter-bizarre-behaviour-scientists-a8015216.html

    Astronomers just measured a whole lot more than gravitational waves

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/astronomers-just-measured-whole-lot-140000227.html

    Intel moves towards production quantum computing with new 17-qubit chip

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-moves-towards-production-quantum-213233228.html

    Evidence Rebuts Chomsky’s Theory of Language Learning

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-rebuts-chomsky-s-theory-of-language-learning/

  50. 100th Avatar November 11, 2017 at 8:03 am #

    The only thing the media has in its hand is an agenda.
    A tranny was elected in Virginia. That was their last success. Never mind that trannyism mostly allows men to take more opportunities from women, but it was a win.
    It’s accepted, it’s a new norm, it’s unquestionable.

    The new battle is toxic masculinity. Men behaving very badly. First go after the rapists, the gropers, and the chronic public masturbators (what is it with these guys? Psychopathic behavior where one is jerkin their mcgurkin with an audience?)
    Easy enough.
    Next comes pats on the ass, whistles, buying drinks, and stealing kisses.
    Outlawed.
    Look to see the runaway porn industry dismantled and its harem of drugged up and desperate women set free.

    You won’t need porn, or a woman with a fleshbot.

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    • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 12:25 pm #

      “desperate women set free”

      Avatar,
      Yes! And let’s get women into combat! Why should men get all the sucking chest wounds?

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 3:58 pm #

        Yeah, for some things, a blow job just don’t cut it. I’d rather not get a blow job than get a sucking chest hound.

    • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 2:16 pm #

      I love the idea of women as prisoners of men’s dreams! Once they are freed, they are just weird weak little men who dress and talk funny. Bring on the fembots!

      They are pricing themselves out of the market. Really smart women will then go the opposite direction in the biggest possible way, either really good girl or really depraved.

  51. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 9:07 am #

    Putin, is that you?

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Caesar-Altes-Museum-Berlin.jpg

    Green Caesar – possibly the only lifetime portrait of Julius Caesar, presumably possessing a portrait resemblance.

  52. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 9:55 am #

    The role of Putin as a not-traitor in saving his boss Sobchak from the mafia of Mr. Yakovlev, beautifully described in the remarkable Russian TV series “Bandit’s Petersburg “.

    I would rather assume that for Putin these memories of how he, undoubtedly risking not only his life, but also the life of his family, went against the seemingly unstoppable force, and won and saved his friend and teacher from Yakovlev, present some moral value, a source of pride and spiritual strength, and he simply dislikes when the Western media are climbing into these dear memories with their dirty paws.

    Moreover, it was these events that made Putin the President, since President Yeltsin put an eye on him after Yeltsin’s daughter Tatiana told him this story and recommended a modest, unknown bureaucrat, at that time, as far as I understand, generally unemployed and perhaps even hiding from Yakovlev’s “justice”, as “NOT TRAITOR”.

    And Yeltsin decided to make Putin his successor. And Nemtsov he appointed as a successor to divert the eyes of the Queen of England – typical Yeltsin’s humor.

  53. volodya November 11, 2017 at 10:23 am #

    Seems that Bernie had a dram or two of the Davos Club Kool-Aid. He gave a speech where he recited the usual Democrat talking-points about Trump’s xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, sexism.

    I mention this because I just read an article about Dollar General. That retail chain is targeting thousands of American communities laid low by a generation of plant closures and offshoring. In the estimation of Dollar General execs, the lost jobs are never coming back, hence the opportunity and demand for Dollar General.

    Now you’d think that Bernie, having spent so much time on this very issue, wouldn’t get distracted. You’d think that he’d stick with what matters.

    But no. Bernie spent some words preposterizing, he talked about Trump’s EXTREME right wing agenda. So let’s see, over yonder in Asia Trump just gave a talking-to about alleviating an insupportable and unsustainable American trade deficit. You know, that thing that along with offshoring is the demolisher of American livelihoods and communities. I guess that issue, the same issue that Bernie used to talk about, counts as “extreme”.

    I thought that Bernie was better than that. See, Bernie started out good, Bernie used to tell it like it is, talking about an America ruined by a handful of billionaires and their Washington lackeys. It’s too bad. Bernie sold out. Bernie talked about cuts in government programs for working families. What he didn’t talk about is that glue that holds families and communities and societies together, long-term, well-paying, stable employment.

    Maybe Bernie got a visit. Or maybe Bernie got the memo that laid out for him the facts of LIFE and more particularly, whose interests matter in this world and whose interests don’t. Maybe the memo acted as smelling salts that woke him up to his own interests, chiefly self-preservation.

    Maybe Bernie spent some time gazing into the middle-distance re-evaluating matters. Clearly, the interests of the people he used to speak up for maybe don’t matter so much anymore. So it’s back to Democratic talking-points bullshit.

    • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 12:26 pm #

      Maybe Bernie got a visit

      Maybe Bernie’s grandkids were taken to the Orgie Island before the Democraic convention to be used in ceremonies ala “Eyes Wide Shut” if he refused to yield the nomination?

      http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/26/07/3192CFE900000578-0-Bernie_Sanders_with_his_wife_children_and_grand_children_in_an_u-a-33_1456470847394.jpg

    • Cavepainter November 11, 2017 at 2:21 pm #

      Oh, are you referring to his displacing of what once was the exclusive privilege of the citizenry to determine the destiny of the nation, replacing it with the will of foreign nationals who choose to defy our national sovereignty, border and laws?

      • volodya November 11, 2017 at 3:23 pm #

        I don’t know what you’re referring to, maybe foreign nationals crossing the border without so much as a how-do-you-do, or maybe it’s American billionaires deciding among themselves, and with the aid of bought-and-paid-for American and foreign legislatures, what the shape of world production, consumption and trade will be.

        Bernie used to talk about both. He saw these things and talked about them as a calamity for American workers and the country as a whole. But it seems that what interests Bernie now is power. So the question is did he sell-out of his own volition or did somebody tell him to walk the line or else. That’s the question.

        Lost among the sound and fury (signifying nothing) of multi-millionaire NFL players “taking the knee”, the Chinese military conducted for the first time live-fire exercises in Africa near the base of the Red Sea, an energy choke point. This wouldn’t have been possible without American billionaires moving vast quantities of money and machines and know-how to China in the process giving China the wherewithal to become a global power. If that wasn’t treason find me a better word.

        • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 3:56 pm #

          The Jews are marrying into East Asian cultures. They plan to do to them what they did to the West. We must warn them before it’s too late.

  54. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 10:24 am #

    In this regard, I will tell, perhaps, one story that demonstrates the difference between the relationship of Americans and Russians to powers that be and how much Americans do not understand anything at all about it:

    One time I was arguing with one American who devoted himself to a well-paid struggle for a “green planet and clean water,” hanging his apartment with photographs of himself, his beloved, in an embrace with young Al Gore.

    First he began to push me with he story about Kabaeva – the younger by 30 something years Putin’s mistress, and I told him (I’m sorry, if you want, joked in English), that pictures of Putin are circulating on the Russian Internet, where he, without fear, runs to meet Kabaeva from the maternity hospital with a bouquet of flowers, and these photos made the Russian men respect Putin even more, and Russian women crying with emotion.

    And this dickhead became sad from my English humor, and rolled out to me something completely outrageous in its stupidity, the story that allegedly Putin’s ex-wife claims that her husband was replaced and Putin is not Putin, but his double.

    And I decided to finish him off by telling him that everyone in Russia knew about this, but after Putin was gone for five days and everyone was worried about his life and health, the news that there are a lot of Putins and Russia will never run out of them caused nothing but enthusiasm and confidence in the Russia’s bright future.

    • elysianfield November 11, 2017 at 12:45 pm #

      ” And I decided to finish him off…”

      Oh yeah? Well… we have many Trumps in our country….

      • FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2017 at 3:37 am #

        America will never run out of Trumps!

  55. volodya November 11, 2017 at 11:23 am #

    I suppose it’s too self-evident to comment on – but what the hell – the spectacular hypocrisy of an entertainment industry, ripe with lawyers, goons, pederasts, molesters, fondlers, fiddlers, rapists, and the political party they favor and donate to most exorbitantly, whose royal couple figures most prominently in the annals of sex-abuse, giving lectures to Trump and the Republicans about sexism.

    Not to mention, as JHK puts it, the sluts that screwed and blew their way to stardom, which given the usual train of events in this most comical fold of the cosmos, is the next shoe to drop. I can’t remember what female starlet said it, to be successful in Hollywood, boff as many people as you can.

    So let’s get to it: did good ole boy Judge Roy Moore fiddle with that girl? Or was it girls (plural)? Maybe he did. If it did indeed happen, the passage of time doesn’t mitigate the act, it just makes it harder to prove. Because it doesn’t matter if it was thirty eight years ago versus thirty eight days ago or thirty eight minutes ago.

    But let’s be clear, whether or not it actually happened or when it happened is utterly and completely beside the point. Why? Because NOBODY involved in this sordid tale, aside from the teen girl that Roy allegedly touched, or his other alleged victims, gives a flying fuck about simple justice. Just look at the timing of the revelation. This isn’t about the girl(s) or about women’s rights or social justice. This is a political smear job and the psychopaths in this utterly amoral game are using that girl for political gain.

    Does anyone in the media and politics understand the word “shame”?. No, this concept is long dead and buried. It’s no longer in the behavioral repertoire. “Shame” is in the lexicon of archaisms passing out of usage. To the extent that you hear it, the greatly enlightened and educated laugh at it, the people that make public displays of faith and piety pay it lip-service. As JHK sez, anything goes and nothing matters.

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  56. MrTibbs November 11, 2017 at 12:00 pm #

    HONOR THY VETERAN AND OATH.

    The role of the U.S. military is the preservation and protection of the sovereign United States of America and all of her Constitutional citizens.

    And all who have sworn the solemn oath to defend the Constitutional Republic from enemies, foreign and domestic, are prepared to act in said defense, as all are active duty.

    Constitutionalism is the new counterculture.

    -T
    Sent from the New Republic.
    https://www.dropbox.com/s/nv8sko6hpqm6tir/New%20Republic%20rev123.pdf?dl=0

  57. liber8tor November 11, 2017 at 12:35 pm #

    As Las Vegas fades away, Paddock’s hard drive goes missing and Lower Manhattan is forgotten…

    You forgot to mention Opioid-gate.. where all they need is another $1 billion to eradicate those 500 billion pills being distributed by a little old lady with Arthritis.

  58. Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 3:20 pm #

    If Portnoy can have a White girlfriend whom he calls “The Monkey”, why can’t I have a Non-White girlfriend whom I call “The Monkey”? Or a Jewish one. If not, why not? Show your work. Mere indignation gets an F.

    Many Jews were alarumed (for Q) at Roth’s book, calling him an informer to the Gentiles as he was revealing too much about how Jews think.

  59. Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 4:11 pm #

    Trump’s Granddaughter sang in Mandarin for the Premier. A act of submission and sign of defeat. She’ll marry a Chinese and facilitate the gradual Jewish takeover of China and East Asia however – so a victory for the Jews. America was only ever a stage for them. They are getting ready to jump ship as the main staging of the rocket is spent and falls back to Earth and burns upon entry. This is America, dying in the bloody snow as the Sun sets and the jackals close in.

    • akmofo November 11, 2017 at 4:55 pm #

      Who are these jackals closing in?

      • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 2:47 am #

        The same ones who attacked Trump People during the Campaign: Antifa, Communists, Blacks, Hispanic thugs, etc. Some were paid by the Elder of Zion, Soros. Others were true blue believing fanatics.

        • akmofo November 12, 2017 at 8:03 am #

          Any others you like to classify as animals? Dogs Pigs Donkeys? There must be a whole zoo full waiting classification.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 1:30 pm #

            In other words, my post about Jews calling White women shiksa or whore and Roth’s character Portnoy calling his shiksa “Monkey” is magically transformed into how evil Non-Jews are. That’s quite an ability you have there, champ. Project much? Or put it another way: Do you ever do anything Other than project?

          • akmofo November 12, 2017 at 3:21 pm #

            You are so pathetic. Everything you put forth is pretty much a Copy&Paste job including your latest crib about “projection” — stolen from someone who obviously directed that comment at you. Not only are you a racist degenerate, you are a pathetic plagiarist too.

            There’s only one path for degenerate haters of humanity like yourself. You will die alone and lonely, most likely of cancer. I can already see your number is up.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 7:55 pm #

            How does one get to be like you? It’s impossible – it must be genetic!

          • akmofo November 12, 2017 at 8:45 pm #

            You had your chance. You picked who you are. I picked who I am. We all picked who we are. There is no chance or coincidence here. It’s all planned. The point being, what did you learn about yourself being who you are. I could ask you some hard questions about that, but I’ll leave that to you.

    • San Jose November 11, 2017 at 5:16 pm #

      Arabella’s learning Chinese is completely charming. I admire people that learn other languages. It’s wonderful having a first lady who speaks 4-5 languages.

      A sad note for America is the fact that three idiot UCLA basketball players got arrested in China for shoplifting during Trump’s visit. They remain in China while the rest of the team comes home. I hope they get time in the slammer. What an embarrassment. I can’t believe that UCLA hasn’t expelled them already.

      Jen in San Jose

      P.S. I’m trying to learn French by reading Paris Match everyday.

      • FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 6:51 pm #

        Good! Now you learn more Russian by reading a Kunstler’s blog!

        • akmofo November 11, 2017 at 7:25 pm #

          Pizdetz

      • malthuss November 11, 2017 at 8:05 pm #

        A sad note for America is the fact that three idiot UCLA basketball players got arrested in China for shoplifting during Trump’s visit.

        Not a sad note for ‘US’—TNB. Typical n. behavior.
        One has a coal burner mama.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 11, 2017 at 9:15 pm #

        A truly feminine comment, in both the best and worst sense of the word. On a scale of 1 to 10, it would thus be absolute 10, including both plus and minus.

    • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 8:03 am #

      I thought her singing was absolutely adorable. She is an upper-class child and is being exposed to important foreign languages and cultures as her parents know that this sort of enrichment at an early age is very useful. Upper class kids in the US are being taught Chinese as China is perceived as important. Her parents thankfully don’t have the mindset of far too many Americans who believe that everyone in the world should speak English. It was not an ” act of submission and defeat”; no clue how on earth you could perceive it as that. Evidently your unbridled hatred of anyone Jewish leads you to such disturbed conclusions.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 1:27 pm #

        Another very feminine comment. So children don’t learn foreign European languages anymore – since they no longer matter. But instead they learn Mandarin? You DON’T see any deeper significance in that beyond “adorable”? Other than the usual liberal contempt for you own culture of course.

        And we let them vote! More fool us….

        • Mountain gal November 12, 2017 at 2:29 pm #

          I’m truly honored that you brand my comment as “feminine”. Why would I not be? And I haven’t said anything about NOT learning European languages; Spanish would certainly be useful both in the US/Mexico and also in Europe and South America. I think children should learn several languages when young besides English. I don’t have any contempt for my culture. I’ve studied Hebrew and Spanish and have picked up some French. I’d love to be fluent in at least 5 languages some day. The better we can speak a language the more we can enter and understand the culture.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 7:54 pm #

            If you only understand your own culture….! Few are even fluent in their own language nowadays. You axe for too much, knitting sweaters for kids in the Congo which they don’t need while your own kids go cold and hungry.

          • San Jose November 12, 2017 at 7:57 pm #

            Mountain gal,

            Janos probably has a “man cold.” He’s touchier than usual.

            Jen in San Jose

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 9:28 pm #

            Hey Jen. What about Arabella’s outfit? Equally adorable? And what do you think about Melania’s stylist?

  60. FincaInTheMountains November 11, 2017 at 6:00 pm #

    The two-minute meeting between Trump and Putin in Vietnam plunged the Clinton Mass Disinformation Media into a state of hysteria – they simply do not know what to lie, especially given that in a couple of weeks the Washington Post journalists and their ilk in Moscow will be forced to register as foreign agents and provide corresponding information about themselves, including about the money and about the cookies.

    Under the threat of jail if attempted to lie.

    Such thing was unheard of even in the USSR and I’m sure that Trump asked for a meeting with Putin precisely because of this. And for him such meeting was fraught from the very beginning, but if a couple of dozen American journalists in Moscow are jailed, here will be such howling that Hawking’s predictions will be fulfilled ahead of schedule.

    And they canceled the meeting because it was possible to agree on something without an encounter, which for Trump really is fraught.

    However, a simple handshake of Putin and Trump was enough to cause an incredible squeal in the Goebbels style: some screams that Trump and Putin still met secretly and spent the night together, cutting off the carcass of Ukraine, some lie that Putin cried when he learned that Trump will not meet him, some argues that Trump founded a cult in his name, and some discovered the secret protocols of the marriage contract.

    The only thing that is not a lie is that Trump in the dispute over Russian interference in the election campaign of 2016 supported the Putin’s version, not the US intelligence(?) community. And the president’s son-in-law went so far as to suggest in view of the results of this campaign to fire half of CNN.

    An alternative version is that Trump asked Putin for a meeting because of the exacerbation of the North Korean threat, but canceled it after talking with Chairman Xi, but I do not believe that Trump is so stupid that he thinks he can do without Russia in the Korean question, no matter what Xi promises.

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  61. pequiste November 11, 2017 at 6:04 pm #

    Since this dispatch has “Spanking The Monkey” as the title and discourses on the current state of the Fourth Estate; permit me to share a journalism’s best bestiality story of the week!

    Reportage of a Berlin park pony rape also includes, as integral to the narrative, the many wonderful attributes of Yzlamik immigration. Can’t make this shit up:

    https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article212502451/Junger-Mann-vergeht-sich-sexuell-an-Pony-im-Goerlitzer-Park.html

    ““Wir schaffen das!” ANgela Merkel must be so very proud of her accomplishments.

    At least the Berliner Morgenpost had the stones to print this hurtful-to -Yzlamik-sensitivities story.

    The other “B” for the sexual proclivity schema acronym is solidly in place, with such inclusive and diverse cultural explorations occurring with such wild abandon.

    OK, now I hate myself. Again.

    (Would a once-upon-a-time journalist of the caliber of say, famed Eric Sevareid, have covered this?)

  62. janet November 11, 2017 at 8:57 pm #

    There is nothing “America First” about Trump’s behavior with Putin. Trump said he believed Putin’s claim that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 US election, despite all the evidence to the contrary, including from US intelligence agencies.

    Trump is more worried that Putin is “insulted” by the accusations than he is by the impact these operations had on our democratic processes. Trump’s shocking comments about Putin are likely to drown out everything else that has happened so far. Has Trump looked into Putin’s soul, like W did, and seen purity?

    What, cough *golden showers* cough, explains Trump’s insistence on taking a relatively positive stance toward the Russian government despite the overwhelming evidence we have of an ongoing cyberwar against democratic elections and a terrible record on human rights? Why does the relationship with Putin seem so important to Trump?

    We are completely defenseless against the next Russian attack in 2018 or 2020, because Trump puts Russia first and America second… and does not accept that the first attack actually happened.

  63. windward November 11, 2017 at 9:11 pm #

    I want to know if JHK can play the Pig Ankle Rag on his fiddle yet.

  64. KesaAnna November 11, 2017 at 9:15 pm #

    ” Google searches are based on relevance. ”

    Yes —

    — And No.

    Germany has many castles . And if that were not enough , even automobile garages that looked , to a four year old , like castles .

    I — vaguely — remember that my favorite was actually an old church and monastery that had been converted into a Stasi prison. Oops.
    But to my four year old mind , its sinister aspect , and adults negative reaction to it ( anything adults profess to dislike must be good ! )
    only made it MORE appealing.

    Anyway, so I wanted a castle , so I got a castle when for Christmas when I was four or five years old.

    It was a toy , so presumably targeted at children. But it was not at all like the fantastical and childish fluff targeted at children now.

    Albeit cheap plastic , the details were realistic , and even adult- ishly
    elegant.
    Really a scale model , if a cheap scale model, of a real world castle.

    My parents wasted their money though. I was four or five years old , and even though I LOVED the thing , I promptly lost , or broke , all the pieces , and soon the castle disappeared into the mists of time.

    Fast – forward 30 years . The internet appears . Now you can find ANYTHING.

    I looked under “Toy Castle ”

    Toy fort .
    Toy plastic castle
    Plastic castle.
    Toy plastic German castle , circa 1970 .
    Socialist Unity Party policy on childrens toys , circa 1970 .

    Ugh !!

    I searched for that damn castle for FIVE YEARS.

    One day , I cannot recall how , I wound up reading some internal toy industry document , dull as dirt , on some subject I can’t even recall because it was so dull.

    The term I was looking for was , ” Play set . ”

    WTF ? But it is called , in the industry , a Play Set.

    I found my old castle in 30 minutes.

    So , a castle is a castle — but it isn’t.

    Relevance is by definition relevant , or , by definition , it is irrelevant.

    ” All in all, this doesn’t tell us much about women one way or the other. ”

    Correct . ( Correct , at least , if you discard or gloss over immediately what I wrote , and focus solely and exclusively on what this gang of Nazis calling themselves Girl Scouts say. )

    ” If women were more similar to men in that way,… ”

    You just said ;

    ” All in all, this doesn’t tell us much about women one way or the other. ”

    ” …the results would show that, but they don’t. ”

    You didn’t show a result for women.

    Not similar —- based on an unknown ?

    I thought you weren’t religious ?

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  65. KesaAnna November 11, 2017 at 11:06 pm #

    ” The laws are written. The prisons are full. The majority of parents are concerned. ”

    I’m one of those “radicals ” who believes , for example , that the war on drugs is really …….well ….. a war on civility and principle.

    Adolf Hitler and Strawberry Shortcake may not be alike , but both know that , call it war , and you can throw all that civility and principle right out the God damned window.

    I believe that for the above stated reason .

    I also believe it , not because some guy in a basement somewhere says so , but because H. R. Haldemann , for example , says so.

    That is to say , the stated goals and intents are not always the goals and intents.

    ” The culture of our generation speaks to concern for their welfare. ”

    ” Do liberals want abortion on demand? Lo, the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, plus their emanations and penumbras, turn out to mean that abortion is nothing less than a woman’s constitutional right!

    Can all this be blind evolution? If liberals were more religious, they might suspect the hand of Providence behind it! This marvelous “living document” never seems to impede the liberal agenda in any way. On the contrary: it always seems to demand, by a wonderful coincidence, just what liberals are prescribing on other grounds.

    Take abortion. Set aside your own views and feelings about it. Is it really possible that, as the Supreme Court in effect said, all the abortion laws of all 50 states — no matter how restrictive, no matter how permissive — had always been unconstitutional? Not only that, but no previous Court, no justice on any Court in all our history — not Marshall, not Story, not Taney, not Holmes, not Hughes, not Frankfurter, not even Warren — had ever been recorded as doubting the constitutionality of those laws. Everyone had always taken it for granted that the states had every right to enact them.

    Are we supposed to believe, in all seriousness, that the Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade was a response to the text of the Constitution, the discernment of a meaning that had eluded all its predecessors, rather than an enactment of the current liberal agenda? Come now. — Joseph Sobran ”

    — i.e . I think your culture speaks to force , only force , and has murdered more children , and not just foreigners , than you can count.

    On a personal note , as I have said before , when I was in school I twice saw with my own eyes other kids beaten up because they were gay , or claimed by another to be gay . teachers were present , and did nothing , pretended to see nothing.

    An example of bigotry in the backward bad old ancient days of yore ?

    I don’t think so.

    I think , in fact , the morality or immorality of homosexuality had nothing to do with it.

    The cause was simple really ; The children ran the school.

    I don’t speak to many children at all , but I have spoken to a few , and I had a nephew who lived with us long -term up until a year ago.

    The report I basically got was , social justice crusading not withstanding , the schools are still basically run by the children.

    WTF ? Are all adults evil ?
    Actually , I doubt even three-fourths are.

    But I do seem to have a great deal of trouble , even explaining to Catholics , that Pavlik Morozov was not a fucking hero.

    And that state authority superseding parental authority was not expressive of a kind , or well -meaning , intent.

    ” Do not most parents want the best for their children? ”

    By “best ” do you mean first priority ?

    Or maybe second, third , fourth , or fifth , priority ?

    I love to point out that it seems to me , according to the diaries , letters , and memoirs I have read written by Confederates , that , generally , they threw in their lot with the Confederacy because loyalty to their family superseded loyalty to the United States.
    Their children were their first priority.

    It seems to me ;

    — At least half don’t want to touch that one with a ten foot pole.

    ” Are you suggesting that the laws and sanctions are not effective(perhaps not)? ”

    Reply ; Clusterfuck Nation.

    ” Why would our host find your comment objectionable? ”

    In the aggregate perhaps.

    I surmise that he can himself intuit that a world made by hand , and the Imperial United States super – state , aren’t really compatible.

    — Except as a Russian , Chinese , or Brazilian – type shit hole.

    But , still , he is a fan.

    So I reckon my routine , ” The united states is no more significant than the Principality of Anhalt- Zerbst ” or , simply , ” fuck the United States ” , is gonna get on his nerves sooner or later.

    • elysianfield November 12, 2017 at 11:59 am #

      ” fuck the United States ” , is gonna get on his nerves sooner or later.

      Kesa,
      The title of this blog is “Clusterfucknation”…I cannot recall any of your comments to date that our host would find intolerable….sometimes, not understandable, but certainly in context with the disparate group that comments. My half-assed comments, however, may eventually require “sonderbehandulung”….

      I do find your comments interesting, for the most part, but sometimes a bit disjointed.

  66. janet November 12, 2017 at 2:01 am #

    I don’t know who Roy Moore is –kesaanna

    Roy Moore said: “I don’t remember ever dating any girl without the permission of her mother.”

    Hey, clueless Roy! Here’s a hint: If you’re in your 30s and you need to ask the mother’s permission, date someone else.

    • Ol' Scratch November 12, 2017 at 10:49 am #

      Hmm… my aunt, now dead, married at 14 and raised six kids back in the day. Her husband was well over 18, but I’m not sure of his exact age. That was just the way it was done in traditional farm families in the middle of the 20th century. Current age restrictive “social norms” are nothing more than that. In any case, sitting in judgement on something someone else did 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago or more, is: one, none of your goddamned business, and two, totally irrelevant to who that person is now.

      • janet November 12, 2017 at 12:00 pm #

        Never figured Ol’ Scratch to be a moral relativist without principles.

        Immoral actions in the past are relevant when an immoral person pretends to represent the republic as a senator. I have deputized myself to stop this hypocrite Roy Moore from becoming a senator and I have lots of Republican allies… people who are not moral relativists.

        • Ol' Scratch November 12, 2017 at 3:57 pm #

          Then attack him on his current positions, which are more than enough to hang him. The past is the past, and I’m sure all of us have more than enough skeletons in our closets to eliminate us from consideration for whatever god awful J-A-W-B out there combing us for imperfections.

      • K-Dog November 12, 2017 at 12:48 pm #

        “did 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago or more, is: one, none of your goddamned business, and two, totally irrelevant to who that person is now.”

        Not totality irrelevant but basically true. If we could travel back in time and meet our former selves we might not like those past selves. None of us arrive knowing what to do to begin with; and before you can excise your inner asshole you have to deal with the fact that you are one. That takes time. Some take more time than others before they dare see their own reflection. Then some fall so in love with their own reflection they can’t see any flaws. But when somebody can finally see their reflection as others actually do then forgiveness is the natural order of things.

        • Ol' Scratch November 12, 2017 at 4:00 pm #

          More than that, I think most of us wouldn’t even recognize our former selves if we ran into them on the street. Human “memory” being extremely and constantly malleable to new perceptions.

  67. FincaInTheMountains November 12, 2017 at 2:06 am #

    Has Trump looked into Putin’s soul, like W did, and seen purity? == Janet

    First of, W looked into Putin’s eyes and discovered a soul, existence of which in former KGB agent was denied by the agent Deep Throat Hillary.

    But look at the bright side Janet: If Hillary had won the election, by now half of Russia and 90% of US would lie in toxic radioactive ruins and Angela Merkel’s Islamist Invasion army would be cleansing the remaining Christian population of the Russian Great Plains.

    • Ol' Scratch November 12, 2017 at 4:12 pm #

      Actually, W’s comment was just W being a sophomoric idiot trying to appear presidential, but that’s another story altogether…

  68. Ol' Scratch November 12, 2017 at 10:44 am #

    Had to laugh out loud at this Slate review of Louis C.K.’s latest movie, whose release got canceled in the wake of the latest sexual “scandal.”

    Watching Louis C.K.’s New Movie and Saying Goodbye
    I’ll never look at my old cultural crush the same way again.

    “I’m not sure if this way of framing the fall of Louis C.K.—that I once found him both hilarious and hot, and when I think of that from now on, I will always feel dirty, compromised, and gross—is appropriate or ladylike or even professional. I know I’m supposed to assume the proper critical distance and evaluate his latest movie as a work of art, then ponder abstractly what the proper relation between a life and an artistic legacy should be. But like a lot of women right now, I’m sort of past caring how I sound. I haven’t noticed a lot of men suppressing what might generously be called their impulse for self-expression.”

    First things first: why this idiot femme ever found this decidedly middle-aged and overweight (nee, fat) man “hot,” is beyond me, and should perhaps be a discussion of concern in itself. Second, word to your mothers, you little femme sugar plum dumplings: some percentage of men have always been this way, and it is apparently only you who are waking up to this fact after all this time. I don’t think Louis C.K. – whose humor I’ve never found particularly engrossing or edgy – ever tried to hide that fact. Bottom line: if I get a chance to see Louis C.K.’s new movie, I will definitely see it now. All this sexual scandal non-sense is nothing more than a political witch-hunt being carried out on the part of the HillaryBots and their despicable minions.

  69. PeteAtomic November 12, 2017 at 11:32 am #

    Thanks for the article, Mr. K

    I think its pretty obvious that when a journalist turns to a table full of other people to figure out what is happening– that the media in the US has absolutely no idea. I’m watching the politico show this AM and that method or phenomena that your article describes is in full force. The GOP finally lost an election, somewhere in this vast country– and the media pendulum is now about “democratic waves” that will swamp DC. All of the empty suits agree 100% that “Trump is in trouble” in ominous, emphatic tones.

    Your reference to Goebbels there is pretty telling. I think the MSM wages a kind of agitation/propaganda war against the US populace because they make much more money by doing it then actually attempting to glean some ‘truths’ somewhere out there.

    After 20 minutes of some wild eyed swamp monster running her mouth about a list of prognostications on the politico shows this morning, I had to turn off the TV.

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    • janet November 12, 2017 at 12:16 pm #

      “the media pendulum is now about “democratic waves” that will swamp DC.” — PeteAtomic

      Well, yes, it is an inconvenient fact for some that Democrats won elections up and down the ticket from Montana to Oklahoma to Georgia.

      Diversity is strength. Hala Ayala and Elizabeth Guzman became Virginia’s first Latina state legislators. Danica Roem will become the entire country’s first openly transgender state legislator. Lee Carter, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, also won.

      Rural white voters, educated suburban voters, voters from all sectors of America came out to vote against Trump. Yes, the pendulum is swinging. Bernie Sanders may run again. He is a long distance runner.

      “I was a very good athlete,” Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “I was pretty good basketball player. My elementary school in Brooklyn won the borough championship — hardly worth mentioning, but we did. And, yes, I did take third place in the New York City indoor one-mile race. I was a very good long-distance runner — not a great runner, but I was captain of my cross-country team, won a lot of cross-country meets and certainly won a lot of races.”

  70. FincaInTheMountains November 12, 2017 at 12:53 pm #

    The Taming of the Shrew [d Spies]

    Today I watched a circus number on CNN performed by Jake Tapper with two tamed spies – former CIA director John Brennan and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and I got a full impression that in the ranks of Clinton Nomenclatura Jake is much higher up then both spies, despite John Brennan’s effort to help levitate his carrier by converting to Wahhabism.

  71. elysianfield November 12, 2017 at 12:53 pm #

    Southern WASP • 3 days ago

    ”It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.”~ David Duke…Grand Dragon of the KKK

    • elysianfield November 12, 2017 at 12:55 pm #

      Correction!

      The quote was not from David Duke, Adolph Hitler, or Bull Conner, but rather…Thomas Jefferson.

      Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Chapter 14)

      I apologize for the error.

      • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 1:34 pm #

        I caught that! Good on you: it’s an effective technique. But remember, we need Bull Connor and John Bull. Blacks need to know that if they act up, they’re going to get the horns. That’s if we follow your ideas that is. If we follow Jefferson’s and Dr Duke’s – we won’t have this problem. Why? Cuz they gone. Blacks be history!

        • malthuss November 12, 2017 at 2:29 pm #

          Meher Baba loved Black folks and stood up when the entered the room.
          Ivy Duce, 1957.

          • Janos Skorenzy November 12, 2017 at 7:51 pm #

            He was probably just trying to rile up the Whitey’s ego. Since He KNEW EVERYTHING, he must have known the true lower status of Blacks.

        • malthuss November 12, 2017 at 2:32 pm #

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycrJTjXiEgY

  72. Q. Shtik November 12, 2017 at 2:43 pm #

    [AH-burn] Shocks Georgia With Stifling Run Defense

    Yep, that’s what the color commentator called the winners.

    • Q. Shtik November 12, 2017 at 5:02 pm #

      “fahv yot pinldee” – said the official with the white hat

      ===========

      translation:

      “five yard penalty”

      • elysianfield November 12, 2017 at 6:33 pm #

        Q,
        Does it not bother you that the respective teams fielded “students” that do not mirror the general demographic of their school’s student body? I am not necessarily talking race, but rather the canard that the majority of the dolts on the field are college material and belong in an institution of higher learning.

        This veiled dishonesty has soured me from college ball. I, at one time, followed the service academies because of their student-athletes. Now, even the academies are corrupted. Watch NCAA ball? I’d rather watch a monkey fuck a football.

        • pequiste November 12, 2017 at 8:19 pm #

          Thank you, E. for keeping your remarks on-topic this week.

          • elysianfield November 13, 2017 at 10:44 am #

            Pequiste,

            Is being “on topic” for the entire run of the comment a rule? Is there not something akin to a “five second rule” where after a period of time, a dropped chicken-leg should not be consumed? A time after which disparate comments are permitted, or even encouraged?

            I am then a serial offender….

  73. BackRowHeckler November 12, 2017 at 8:06 pm #

    News Media here are whooping it up and are happier than pigs in sh-t because in some election in some nearby state a drag queen won an election. They showed a pic of the drag queen, a big negro dressed up as a woman, and wearing high heels and a blond wig. Really, a disturbing sight.

    I realize its just part of the American Freak Show, and now it has merged with the government and media freak show. It seems to be all coming together nicely.

    brh

    • pequiste November 12, 2017 at 8:55 pm #

      Stop with the double entendres there BRH. I mean, really, what gives with all the rather unveiled sexual imagery people?

      “….seems to be all coming together nicely.” With comments regarding the local celebrations for a winning Negro transvestite politician. Cut the brutha/sista some slack: s/he could have worn a turban and fox wrap or made the victory speech as a Free Shit Army majorette.

      All because JHK set up the scenario by announcing that the world of journalism is “spanking the monkey” in providing their propa, ahem, news product. TeeVee’s “The View” has more news product than most CNN, Fox, and MSNBC broadcasts by a country mile.

      Then Elysian goes the next step and says he would rather watch a “monkey fuck a football” than watch the NCAA’s men-in-tight-uniforms fighting for an odd ovalish-shaped bladder of air. Isn’t that what they are actually doing on the gridiron?

      Well, frankly, I am blushing when I say I would not watch either an NCAA football game, even if it was my alma mater, or a “news” program on any legacy media without thinking that not only are they spanking the monkey for goodness sakes; what the practitioners are really expertly doing (what we used to say in the military) is “screwing the pooch.*”

      *There’s that other “B” sexual proclivity schema term again.

      A long time ago I actually used to watch, and enjoy, the McLaughlin Group for a nicely concise and humorous take on the week’s top stories by actual journalists. John was a hoot as he would tease and harangue his panel members including Mortons Kondracke & Zuckerman, Eleanor Clift, Fred Barnes, and my favorite, the real deal- button bursting Baltimore writer Jack Germond. The ascerbic conservative (and ultimate insider) Pat Buchanan would balance out Clarence Page and in a half hour, one got a political fix that was entertaining – not an entertainment fix that was political.

  74. BackRowHeckler November 12, 2017 at 8:23 pm #

    Article in WSJ last week states world oil demand will peak in about 2040 at 112 million bpd, then level off. Right now demand is at 97 million bpd.

    Nowhere in the article did it say production could not, or will not be able to meet demand. When Jim wrote TLE in 2005 worldwide demand was about 85 million bpd.

    For what its worth.

    brh

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  75. the camels bell November 12, 2017 at 11:08 pm #

    Current Fox News stories 11/12/17, 11:00pm:

    Can Trump convince foul-mouthed leader of the Philippines to change his ways?

    Mall of America Stabbing

    NFL Head Roger Goodell reportedly request $50M salary.

    Bill Gates firm buys Arizona land for $80M to create futuristic metropolis

    Damn, that’s solid journalism.

  76. FincaInTheMountains November 13, 2017 at 3:23 am #

    I don’t like

    I don’t like a fatal ending for a reason.
    Because I’m never getting sick of life.
    And I do not like any season
    When joyful songs of mine are not alive.

    I don’t like bold cynicism for fetters,
    I don’t trust some easy passion,
    Or when a stranger peeps into my letters;
    I find it’s quite an ugly fashion.

    I don’t like when there are halfway talks
    Or interruptions in the certain places.
    I don’t like when someone shoots at folks;
    It doesn’t matter, at the backs or faces.

    I hate the rumors in the form of versions,
    The rotten doubts and the honor’s pin.
    The wrong way manners make me feel aversions,
    Like screech of iron cutting glass therein.

    I don’t like at all cocksure game;
    I’m better off with no breaks on track!
    Such word as ‘honor’ is forgotten, what a shame!
    They honor slander now, all behind one’s back.

    The broken wings mean just another loss;
    There’s no pity in my heart, it’s clear.
    I do like neither weakness no brute force,
    And yet, for Christ, the crucified, I have a tear.

    I don’t like myself absorbed by fear;
    It hurts when innocent are beaten madly.
    I don’t like when someone tries to smear
    My soul; all the more, my spirit so badly.

    I don’t like arenas and manages;
    A million is swindled there at once.
    Whatever changes lie ahead by any measure,
    I’ll never ever like it, not a chance.

    Vladimir Vysotsky, 1969

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ97BTBGCMI

    • akmofo November 13, 2017 at 7:37 am #

      He liked to play Shake Spear’s Iudea..

      Many a night, He asked:

      Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
      The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
      Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
      And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep

      He was witness to a noble soul
      Russia’s eternal Baobab
      planted in a forest of aspen

      https://youtu.be/NIwItNUEhRw

      .

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