Well, it turns out omicron is a cold. Scotland, Mexico and El Salvador lifting C-19 restrictions is just the beginning. The Pandemic is wrapping up nicely. (Read more in my latest substack here.) After a year of fighting vaccine mandates and vaccine passports (see my previous post on this blog), I am thrilled and relieved that someone finally organized a march here in DC from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to Defeat the unconstitutional Mandates. It’s happening this Sunday, January 23, 2022. Per the website, meet at the Washington Monument by 10:30 a.m. Walking begins at 11:30 a.m. There is a mandate in place here in DC to show your vaxx card in order to enter restaurants, forcing restaurant owners and their employees to act as an enforcement arm of the state. It took effect January 15, 2022. Buuuuut there’s no mandate across the river in Arlington, Virginia where the newly sworn in Governor of the Commonwealth is so anti-mass psychosis that he may even withhold funding to school districts who enforce a mask mandate! Yep, it’s over. (Mayor Bowser, just tell the deep state operatives you tried. They’ll give you an A for effort for sure!!)
And here’s how we really know even the CDC is grasping at straws. They’re calling people like me and asking them to participate in a vaccination survey. On January 11, 2022 they did call me. After ignoring their first attempt to reach me, I decided I would answer the phone this time.
It was only a 10 minute survey and the guy was really nice. He thanked me after every answer! (LOL, because it’s a very effective NLP/mind control/interview technique which works on people who respond to praise from parental/authority figures — HR people use it a lot; to be fair, this guy was just reading a script albeit very sincerely. I swear I heard just the hint of amusement in his voice when I said, “decline to answer” to about 7 questions in a row).
First words out of his mouth were:
In no way will your answers affect the amount of public assistance you receive or qualify for in the future (!!!)
And the first out of mine were,
How’d you get my number?
He said they call a random sampling of cell phone numbers. This is probably actually true. I used to conduct phone surveys and my boss, the owner of the research company, often purchased phone numbers based on the billing zip code on record with the carrier, regardless of the area code.
Took your survey @CDCgov – had a blast. Never EVER getting your antibody dependence enhancement causing, myocarditis inducing poison, you fascist psychopathic sadists pic.twitter.com/SWfIiLH7Ag
They asked my zip code, age, gender (and if I identified as transgender) and I was happy to answer these questions. They asked me the number of people in my household and I was happy to answer that. When they asked for my level of education, income, sexual orientation, marital status, and whether or not I was pregnant or attempting to become pregnant, I declined to answer.
They asked me if I had been vaccinated once, twice, or zero times, I said zero. They asked me how likely I would be to get vaccinated. I said never. They asked me how easy would it be for me to get vaccinated if I wanted to, I said extremely easy. They asked me if to my knowledge I had ever had Covid-19, I hesitated and conceded that I do not know since I’ve never been tested. They asked me if my employer required me to be vaccinated, I gleefully answered NO.
They asked me if my employer required me to be vaccinated, I gleefully answered NO.
They asked me to estimate, of all my family and friends, about how many were vaxxed. I said about half. They asked me if I had health insurance; I suspect this is a way of ascertaining whether a respondent’s insurance (if any) is through their employer or through Medicaid.
What a difference 8 months make, I can tell you that much. Last May (of 2021) I was incensed over the idea of having to disclose my vaccination status — my personal health information — to anyone. I lost my job over it in fact! (Read more about that here.) Today I’ll tell anyone who points in my general direction, HELL NO I’M NOT VAXXED AND I PRAY TO GOD YOU AREN’T EITHER. IT’S CALLED ANTIBODY DEPENDENCE ENHANCEMENT, GOOGLE IT. THAT’S WHAT THESE EXPERIMENTAL GENE THERAPY INJECTIONS CAUSE.
So what’s the point? What’s the purpose behind the CDC’s data gathering? Recon.
So what’s the point? What’s the purpose behind the CDC’s data gathering? Recon.
They know they’ve reached a plateau: way way fewer Americans than expected have been duped by the vaxaganda & way way fewer Americans than predicted think mandates are acceptable. So they’re sticking their feelers out to see if the “hesitancy” is rooted in a certain demographic so they can tailor the next round of radio spots, the next round of TV ads, the next round of MSM fear porn, to specifically LGBT or specifically to Blacks or specifically to people with PhD’s, etc.
What I decided between the first call from the CDC and the second was to give the CDC exactly enough data to be counted. I ignored the first call (screw you, CDC, I thought, none of your business if I’m vaxxed) but on second thought realized, hey wait a sec, this is very much like voting. My voice as a woman in Washington, DC who has not been vaccinated and never fucking will consent to be gets to be heard — and counted. That’s why I picked up the phone. And that’s why you should too if you happen to get a phone call.
This collective global insanity is almost over, praise God. Want to make your voice heard in another fantastic way?? Join me and SHOW UP at the Defeat the Mandates March here in Washington, DC on Sunday, January 23, 2022. See you there!
Remember that guy who claimed that the “kindness” of Sarah Silverman on twitter caused him not only to drop support for Trump but become a Dem & then declare support for Elizabeth Warren? It’s even more ridiculous than it sounds! Let’s break it down:
Who is David Weissman and why should I care? you might be asking.
Who he is doesn’t matter. It’s very unlikely he wrote the post in question (which you can read here) himself. The tone is too varied to indicate one writer anyway (the voice shifts from humble to condescending to patronizing to contrite to patriotic to corporatist faster than Linda Blair on an Exorcist Merry Go Round) so the who isn’t relevant. The what is why you should care.
The what?
I said, that’s why you should care.
LOL. But seriously, this anti-Trump piece of propaganda — er, I mean, opinion piece — is some heavy duty power of suggestion-based nonsense. The multiple tones of voice are just the beginning! Wait till we get to the word myopic!! LOL!! I’m dying.
The premise is that the author claims he attacked liberal activist Sarah Silverman on twitter, and the fact that she reacted with kindness to him instead of just blocking him causedhim to FIRST decide not to support Trump and SECOND to magically become a Democrat! Let’s start with the headline (which you can see for yourself here). It states: “In 2016, I was a conservative Trump supporter but I’m backing Elizabeth Warren in 2020. Trump supporters who once knew me now call me a traitor, a sellout, a Dem plant, a fraud — which surprised me because I thought they were friends.”
Headlines are great, because they tell us exactly what the writer wants us to walk away thinking in our own mind. The headline is the bright red neon sign that says, “This is the take-away. Not the conclusion you might draw with your own ability to reason and apply logic if you took the time to read the entire article, oh, noooooo. Put your deductive reasoning cap on ebay; you won’t be needing that anymore, because instead, I’m going to tell you which conclusion to draw!”
That conclusion? That it’s ok — you have permission — to switch from Trump to a Democrat candidate in 2020, just like the writer has, and specifically, to the DNC’s pre-annointed victor, Elizabeth Warren. And, by the way, the writer continues, people I thought were my FRIENDS are now calling me mean names!! Trump supporters! Being mean to me!!
Does this sound familiar? Because something similar actually did happen. Many many — to the tune of millions — of Bernie supporters (1 in 10) flipped to Trump in 2016 after he endorsed Hillary. And between 8 and 12 million Obama voters in 2012 magically transformed into Trump voters in 2016. And these people who flipped were then as a consequence ruthlessly mercilessly harassed and shamed and pummeled with insults and hate for months and even years on the internet and at rallies if they went public with that information. Including yours truly, who voted for Obama twice, supported Bernie in the primaries, and switched to Trump after I read his now famous tweet, “Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs,” during the summer of 2016.
The target audience of this propaganda piece is anyone and everyone who flipped to Trump in 2016. And the purpose of the piece is to influence that group of people to flip back.
The ways to get people to do something they would not otherwise do are to give them a reward (for example, a bribe), threaten them with a punishment, or do it in a far more sinister way, such as by using the power of suggestion so that they believe it is something they already want to do and then go ahead and DO it with little resistance. We’ll come back to that word BELIEVE (because it is sprinkled liberally throughout the piece).
The “opinion” piece begins:
It’s been over a year since I decided to stop supporting President Trump and join the Democratic Party. I have also decided to support Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primaries. To this day, I am still asked why I made the transition — and I feel that I need to explain why.
I want to ask you a question, dear reader: do we as Americans, or even just as human beings, decide on a certain candidate? Or do we feel desirefor a certain candidate? Desire is a powerful word, in terms of the power to influence your action. But the word decide is even more powerful. You might desire neither candidate and subsequently take no action. But if you are repeatedly told to DECIDE, well, that’s a whole other area of suggestion. It’s a command statement. You have to choose. You have to pick one. You have to take decisive action. You HAVE TO VOTE. DECIDE DECIDE DECIDE. Pick one!!!!!
Lol.*
Deep dive into the word decide:
I never decided on Trump. I was devastated that Bernie had been absolutely robbed of any fair chance to be the Dem nominee and I looked around and saw Trump. And Trump wanted to get us out of Afghanistan, bring back manufacturing jobs (he literally said “I’m for fair trade not free trade” at a rally I was watching live in 2016; as I picked my jaw up off the floor, I was like, holy shit, does this guy have a membership at the co-op too? I’m gonna shit my pants! I could just imagine him and Melania measuring bulk organic rolled oats, “it’s tare .37 on that tupperware container” as they approach the register with their cart filled with free range chicken and grass fed beef — LOL), get us out of the TPP (which he did on day one, almost literally day one — I think it was week three), and end endless war. I was like, oh wow. I’m gonna have to look into this guy. I never decided. I DESIRED. And Candidate Trump knew the power of humor too. Read the tweet mentioned above. I was like, omg, this guy wants China to stop fucking our country to death andhe’s funny as hell. Interesting! (We’ll get to some of the things he said that I didn’t agree with later, but I want to note here that I would fight and die in a war against China tonight if it mean ridding the world of their sick communist sadistic torture regime.)
So why does this overt piece of anti-Trump propaganda use the word “decide”? Because its target audience is the undecided voter, not the passionate desire-filled voter. Let’s go to the next paragraph:
I was a conservative activist and writer for a couple of years prior to the 2016 election. I decided to do this because I felt threatened by Democrats, and I believed that they wanted to take our rights away — rights like freedom of religion, and speech. I believed Islam was a religion of terror. I believed Democrats wanted to destroy the sanctity of marriage. I had a myopic view of the second amendment, without seeing its full context. I condemned socialism and abortion. I wanted a wall to stop immigrants from “invading” America.
I was originally a Ted Cruz supporter
Again with the “I decided” seed being planted (over and over) in your mind. But anyone who knows conservatives (and you’re talking to NOT one; I’m a pro-choice, pro-$15/hour minimum wage voter as well as being a pro-America FIRST policy, pro-gun voter) knows that certain views are non-negotiable. Conservatives are often religious. Let’s use deductive reasoning to figure out if this David Weissman character is probably one of them. He says “I condemned abortion” in the past tense. People who condemn abortion are almost always religious. They believe that abortion is murder because it stops a beating heart. If he condemned abortion, then we can safely conclude that he is probably a religious conservative (and not just fiscally conservative as many Independent voters are). What would be the reason he changed his mind on the abortion issue? Because Trump? Doesn’t quite pass the logic smell test, does it? Let’s say–for the sake of argument–that there is a person somewhere who was pro-life who switched to pro-choice later in life: I’d bet money that there are a few. Ok. But the author of this article? Who ostensibly supported Ted Cruz? A simple google search reveals Cruz’s political positions:
But if a person were against legal abortion, are they going to become pro-choice and stop condemning abortion because … twitter? No, if the Republican candidate isnot someone they can morally support, they’re going to hold their nose and vote for the pro-choice candidate anyway, as many of my Catholic friends did in 2008. It’s almost as if the team writing this piece of propaganda doesn’t know how to create a fake profile of a voter that is based on any semblance of reality. The portrait of this fictional flipper — er, I mean, very real human being named David Weissman — could just as easily have been of a fiscal conservative instead of a religious conservative who flips from Trump to Warren and it would have sold marginally better. And that is to say, still poorly!** OR, they could have left the abortion issue out of the article completely. Or the author could have said, “I remain pro-life but it’s not the most important issue for me.” Or any number of variations that would have made SENSE.
Same weird inconsistency with condemning socialism; that wouldn’t change either. (And why is this article trying to plant the seed of the idea that ANYONE should be ok with socialism? Hmmm? Let’s ALL condemn socialism.) And how about destroying the sanctity of marriage as between one man and one woman? Again, you’re talking to someone (me, Sarah) who believes gay marriage should be legal (but PSA: there are only 2 genders) especially since forbidding it hurts straight women, because as long as society condemns homosexuality, there will be those few gay men who will entrap an unsuspecting woman in a loveless marriage and use her as a beard while he has affairs with men. I love gay marriage. Marriage is a legally binding contract that says one sexual partner for the REST OF YOUR LIFE. It’s the ultimate cross fit class, the ultimate test of endurance and commitment. Idare you to get married. Straight or gay. I dare you to TRY to find someone you love so much you are willing to agree to only have sex with them till the day you die. I triple dog DARE you. (If you’re really feeling brave, may I suggest opening a joint checking account! HAHAHAHA! I’m not laughing at you. I’m crying with you.)
But I digress. The point is, a religious conservative person is not going to change on the gay marriage issue either. Again, they might stop liking Trump and go support a different Conservative, but to switch to a Democrat? I mean, the proposition is silly! And briefly, to touch on radical Islamic terrorism, that’s an unfortunate reality of life on Earth at this moment in time. Who doesn’t know that? How odd. Why did the propagandists “go there”? Plus, feminists morally oppose the hijab and female genital mutilation: all my female Boomer friends who tried to talk me out of voting for Trump (they voted for Hillary) think that the oppression of women inherent in radical Islam is deplorable. Bringing this issue up was unwise in this forum, to put it mildly. And you know why, my conservative friends, don’t you. Because conservative women — and every conservative man I’ve met and talked to about this issue while at the MAGA meetups I’ve attended — think that the oppression of women inherent in radical Islam is deplorable! Oh, what’s that? Common ground? Gee whiz! Who’d a thunk it! Propagandists, in your next piece, just don’t even go there. Really.
And it gets better! And even more absurd. I mentioned my religious friends who usually vote Republican but held their nose for a pro-choice candidate in ’08 thinking Obama would end the endless war (and death). Did you notice that NO WHERE in this article is the word Republican mentioned? No where. Not once. As I’ve mentioned in my previous blogposts, the three elements of communication are: the words that are coming out of the person’s mouth, what they’re really saying, and what’s not being said, i.e. what has been specifically omitted. And it’s the third category that can be most revealing. We get to ask, why were you afraid to say “Republican,” Mr. Weissman? You want people who voted REPUBLICAN in 2016 to not vote REPUBLICAN in 2020, but no where in the entire article do you utter the word? Why? Because the piece is purely an attack on MAGA, the movement to end endless war and crony capitalism that ships our jobs to China, Mexico and other countries and bring back union jobs that pay middle class salaries to hard working Americans. I am a Trump supporter. I’m not a Republican and I’ve never been a Democrat. This article is an attack on ME and the 8 million people who voted for Obama in 2012 and flipped to Trump in 2016.*** That’s why Mr. Weissman never uses the word “Republican.” But he uses the word MAGA. Several times.
Here’s how we know the piece is an attack on MAGA, this quote:
The insults continue to this day, but when it happened during that initial learning period [after the author supposedly spontaneously, and not as part of a pre-planned psychological operation, began a public discourse on twitter with liberal celebrity Sarah Silverman], it snapped me out of my MAGA trance. I saw how Trump thrives on this behavior, and that’s when I decided to no longer be part of MAGA.
This article is designed to paint the MAGA movement, the effort to drain the swamp, in a bad light. The effort to bring back manufacturing jobs? Imply that one would have to be in a trance to want that! The effort to end endless war? What have you been smoking? We’re in a trance to want jobs that have benefits and pay enough money to raise a family, and God forbid we want a national budget less bloated than a good year blimp. We must be hypnotized!! “I decided to no longer be a part of MAGA.” Again, the word decide. As we read a first person narrative, our mind automatically internalizes what the writer is saying as its own thoughts; only a very strong moral compass makes you simultaneously react, “whoa, this is some fucked up shit right here, yo.” The weak mind will not resist the “decide” command statement and the “I decided against MAGA” suggestion that is being given.
And no attempt to establish rapport with the MAGA tribe would be complete without inserting the phrase “fake news” somewhere in the piece:
After a couple of years of defending Trump and calling media that portrayed him in a bad light “fake news” — which was a thing before Trump — I had a conversation that changed my approach on social media.
Wow, “which was a thing before Trump,” B T W. F Y S A. Oh, we didn’t know that? We the reader are too ignorant to know that fake news didn’t take its first stroll down the escalator in 2015 (only to fall flat on its face at the feet of President Trump)? Gee, thanks for enlightening us. We would never have known that without you educating us. It’s an example of the patronizing tone I mentioned at the beginning, and only something a CNN/CNBC/MSM fan would feel compelled to point out — Fox News “fair and balanced” watchers have always wanted real news and known of the dearth of fair and balanced news sources. This is something an intern who googled “origin of the phrase fake news” as part of her research for ghostwriting this piece for Weissman would say. Now, let’s peel back one more layer. The writer is admitting that the media is portraying Trump in a bad light instead of a factual unbiased light! (That was a slip-up.)
Then suddenly the article takes on a fake-humble tone …
I realized I had always been aggressive and mean. I wanted to force my views on people. There was never a debate — I used insults and ad hominem attacks.
These tactics didn’t get me anywhere.
… as if the author is confessing to us, “I realized …” and the unspoken, “I confess that …” I used insults. But if the writer had truly wanted to create empathy, they would have apologized. They would include a “saw the light” statement, following up “these tactics didn’t get me anywhere” with something like, “and I’m sorry I hurt people I didn’t even know with things I wish I hadn’t said” or something along those lines. Because the author(s) is in no way humble, and in no way self-reflective, and in no way sorry for anything, these words are omitted. Ironically, the entire paragraph comes off as an extended insult (“Trump supporters are aggressive and mean, force their views on others, use insults and ad hominem attacks — I’m no longer a Trump supporter, er go I no longer have these personality traits”). And we all know how well insults work to change someone’s mind! (The irony!) But let’s get totally real: people who are aggressive and mean don’t stop being aggressive and mean when they switch political parties. They just become aggressive and mean about the new party. Is this news? This article acts like the author found Jesus, not Elizabeth Warren.
Here’s another slip-up; read this (unintentionally) sweetly complimentary description of POTUS:
Trump wanted the same things I wanted, so I thought he was an easy choice for President of the United States. I really believed Trump was a patriotic, successful businessman, who cared about all Americans, and that sold me on voting for him. I was aware he wasn’t a saint, but I felt no one is perfect and anyway, conservative news networks kept calling Hillary a criminal.
No one is perfect! Ain’t that the truth. What a healthy sense of self and others the author is pretending to have! But uh oh … here comes the sinister reveal.
At the time, I didn’t realize who Trump really was.
Yes, that’s right: you, dear reader, are not smart enough to see who Trump really is. You need Mr. Weissman to tell you. And then to tell you The Truth about Hillary and Obama.
Here’s who Trump really is, according to Weissman:
but then the Helsinki meeting with Putin came. I saw how he, the President of the United States, made himself vulnerable to Putin and Russia, agreeing to closed-door meetings and being recorded by our adversaries. What kind of president would do such a thing? When I saw someone tweeted a clip of the debate between Hillary Clinton and Trump where she called Trump a puppet of Putin, I was stunned. I now believe she was right. This is not the guy who I voted for, and yet it is. That was the moment when I decided I was no longer a Trump supporter. I went back over years of his corruption, lies and draft-dodging. My whole world was turned upside-down.
Is this the best they’ve got? Helsinki? The non-event that happened over a year ago? Putin hands Trump a soccer ball and says, “the ball is now in your court” in an OBVIOUS attempt to deliver Trump a message in a concealed way so that the message would not be intercepted by anyone in POTUS’ immediate circle and all of a sudden Trump’s a puppet to this guy? All diplomatic meetings are surveilled and recorded by the government of the country they’re being held in — LOL. I mean LMAO. Seeing that part of the clip from the debates changed Weissman’s mind? It’s laughably unrealistic. And yep, Putin’s a mean dick. And? How long have you lived on earth? You didn’t know that mean dicks fill power vacuums? Well, welcome to the shithole war planet. Here’s your accordion. (Old Far Side joke — ode to Gary Larson.) When mean dicks have nuclear weapons, you play nice so they don’t blow up the planet. Now go get a mirror. And don’t you TOTALLY wonder what was inside the soccer ball? I heard from this guy Comey once during a press conference that Hillary’s lawyers used a scrubbing software to wipe her emails from US State Department computers. In the same press conference, the guy Comey — oh yeah, he was like the FBI director at the time, omg — he totally said foreign actors had accessed her emails because the server in her bathtub at her house in NY was like totally NOT secured (yes, it was like LITERALLY IN HER BATHTUB – I know right?!?). But what if Russia had TOTALLY read all the emails and was like, lol, I heard it was your birthday, President Trump, here’s a flash drive buried inside a soccer ball with ALL her emails, yeah we made a copy — I know, you didn’t expect that, you thought we would just skim the subject lines but no, we actually printed them out too and bound them in a fun spiral bound book cover and laminated it, you know those fun laminating machines from the 80’s? Well, here you go — Putin heard a rumor Trump was a mean dick with access to nuclear weapons and this was his way of saying, please don’t blow up the planet! Hashtag GLASNOST!!!
So a couple of things. I hope you saw the humor in the previous paragraph, is probably number 1. Second, there’s a lot of gray area on earth. But this article reeks of black and white thinking. Yeah, Russia is our adversary. They’re also a nuclear power. Russia is a beautiful country with beautiful people with a shitty government. (Oh, is it mirror time again?) Freedom is hard. Half the people eligible to vote in our country don’t even show up on election day. “I don’t have time” and “I don’t think my vote matters” are the odd things I hear come out of the mouths of people who lack gratitude and reverence for their freedom. Elections have consequences, as former President Obama said. That they do. One lives in the White House right now. You know why? Because math. Votes are counted. Did anyone think the Berlin Wall was going to fall and Russia was going to be like, “oh, yeah, we’re totally cool with less geographical territory now that we’re not the USSR”? Sometimes the best we can hope for is peace but the most we can actually get is an absence of war. A little diplomacy goes a loooooong way. (Lol, did you know there is no gayness in Russia? True story!) Do you know why you don’t even remember Helsinki? Because nothing happened. Seriously. Anderson Cooper practiced his method acting skills in an attempt to display Shock and Chagrin, and a couple people on twitter pretended they had a heart attack, but really, two world leaders talked about politics, and maybe, MAYBE IF WE’RE LUCKY, we’ll get to find out what was so controversial in those State Dept emails that good people, career public servants, risked their jobs and security clearances and freedom (from JAIL) to cover for Madam Secretary. All because the Russians are nosy mo-fo’s! (Although, if it’s a nosiness contest, well then ….)
Trump is strong and scary, the quintessential Alpha male. That’s who he “really” is. He will stop at nothing to protect the United States of America and her people from danger. Period. Putin and Hillary are Alphas too. These aren’t “nice” people. Who do you want protecting your tribe? Nice or scary as hell?
But this article purports to tell us The Truth about Hillary and Obama too — again, because you aren’t smart enough to figure it out yourself. It should go without saying that anyone who tells you that they have The Truth, and that The Truth is ______ is full of The Bullshit. (Biggest red flag in the article — it’s almost as if they wantthis article to reinforce existing support for Trump!). Mr. Weissman says:
I learned the truth about President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats. I have learned of all the good they have done for our country. They are not twisted, evil people who wanted to destroy America from the inside. All they wanted to do was to help move our country forward
What does “move forward” mean? Linguistically, it’s nebulous — it could mean getting out of a rut or not standing still, but in contrast to “make America great again” which indicates going back to the way it was before NAFTA/WTO and twenty years of endless war, “move forward” clearly implies that going back is wrong and moving forward is right. Attacking MAGA is a divide and conquer strategy since it was THEE thing that united conservative voters and independent voters and old school union dems.
I would argue that those people were voting for MAGA, the idea, not Trump, the man, whereas people who voted for Hillary were voting for the woman, not the policies she represented. And as far as “the truth” about her and other “top democrats” that Mr. Weissman claims to have learned, what good was it that they did for our country? That’s a big claim. The author presents no evidence to back it up. Weissman says Trump was corrupt and dodged the draft, but we the American people aren’t looking at anything but the actions of the LAST THREE YEARS that affect us personally. And we see factory jobs coming back, factories coming back that help middle class families and communities, prison sentence reform that helps Black families, finally someone fighting China back on their currency devaluation and intellectual copyright violations and flooding our US market with deadly fentanyl. And more. The list goes on and on and on. At the top of it? Average increase of $5,000 a year per family in income. I mean, that’s so awesome (thank you, President Trump!).
“The average median income under President Bush rose only $400 over an 8-year period. Under President Obama, it rose $975 over an 8-year period…And under my administration, it rose $5,000 over slightly more than just 2 1/2 years. That’s a big difference.” – @realDonaldTrumppic.twitter.com/wq4K7wrldn
— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) November 12, 2019
Hillary Clinton asked rhetorically, “What difference at this point does it make?” when being questioned about Benghazi. She said of Gaddafi, “We came, he saw, he died” and laughed strangely. These cringe-worthy moments were horrifying to me as a student of body language and speech patterns. But to my liberal friends who voted for her, it was so embarrassing for them to recall those moments that they would come up blank when I mentioned it to them. They would say, “How can you vote for Trump when he says “grab ’em by the pussy”? And I would say, “because it was said around all guys and men talk using language far worse than that and he had no idea he was being recorded. We all might be embarrassed by words we said in confidence. Hillary doesn’t even realize how awful she sounds when she KNOWS she’s being filmed, and broadcast live, and she can’t even reflect on how insensitive it sounded to gleefully cackle about Gaddafi or throw her hands up and ask what difference does it make when she and Obama are personally responsible for the attack on the compound in Benghazi. Yuck! I’m embarrassed FOR her!”
My friends couldn’t argue. Why? Because essentially we were in agreement: both Trump and Hillary had said things that were embarrassing. The “she’s so qualified” argument, I noticed, was often used by those who couldn’t confront how uncomfortable it makes people to observe Hillary Clinton’s social ineptitude: how patronizing, how smug, how arrogant and how out of touch she comes across as. Furthermore, Hillary Clinton was treated as if she were literally above the law. Her lawyers wiped her server (like with a cloth? No, with bleachbit) so that thousands of those emails would never see the light of day. Obama knew about it, indeed, aided and abetted it, and participated in it by replying to her non-government email address. And the FBI director didn’t care. What good DID Obama do? I can think of many broken promises but I can’t think of anything he actually accomplished that Trump isn’t undoing as we speak (Affordable Care Act, etc). When I think of Obama, I hear him saying, “The jobs aren’t coming back. There’s no magic wand.” And you know what I think? I think, what a prick.
AND I CAN’T WAIT TO VOTE FOR TRUMP ALL OVER AGAIN! Make America Great Again! Awesome union manufacturing jobs, come (back) to mama!
President @realDonaldTrump: "Past leaders wrote off American manufacturing as dead but their policies were the ones that were actually killing it"
— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) November 12, 2019
Let’s wrap this up with a few more indicators that Weissman’s piece is purely political propaganda and not an authentic conversion of heart narrative.
As I began conversing with Silverman, other people began reaching out to me. I started learning more about Democratic values and people. In many ways, it was shocking.
“In many ways, it was shocking” … why, because you were living under a rock? You never heard of a living wage before? Government funded healthcare? You never heard of that even though Canada has it and Obama wanted a public option in 2008 and Hillary pushed for single payer in 1994? LOL. We might have been born at night. Not last night. Conservatives call it the nanny state. Again, “it was shocking to find out I had so much in common with people I would have disagreed with a year earlier” makes sense. He doesn’t say that. “In many ways, it was shocking,” which is what he did say, comes off as juvenile. It’s almost as if someone edited the piece to shorten it and went too far.
What [Silverman] did was inspire me to talk to other people who had different views to mine. She accepted me for being a Trump supporter and that’s what brought down my wall of hate and closed mind.
The “wall of hate” imagery is being used to plant the idea of the border wall, as in Build the Wall, is a wall of hate, and not a very real physical barrier against criminals trying to break into the back door of our house-country. Being accepted exactly as we are, warts and all, IS an extremely powerful precursor to transformation. But again, insulting Trump supporters by telling them they are filled with hate and have closed minds? Not going to change their minds. (The same irony as above, using a story of acceptance to shame someone for being different … so strange.)
Ok, read this one: this is the best deep state co-authored part of the WHOLE piece. LOL, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
I maintained a myopic view on the right to bear arms, and believed that Democrats want to take all of your guns — but I’ve learned from the conversations I’ve had since that that’s far from true. I learned that while the second amendment states that we have the right to bear arms, it should be within the confines of a well-regulated militia. The history of an AR-15 makes it clear that it was meant to be a weapon of war. There’s no reason why a civilian should own weapons that are only meant for combat.
How many times is the intern — er I mean, Weissman — going to say, “I’ve learned”? Again, you the reader are being educated (yeah, RE-educated). Myopic literally means stupid. It means, “lacking intellectual insight.” Yep, “I maintained my stupid view on guns.” That’s not insulting! Not at all! How about this? “I maintained my low IQ view on the right to bear arms.” So here’s how we know this was always a propaganda piece. The AR-15 is NOT a weapon of war. But let’s say it is. For the sake of argument. This deep state tool/pawn says that he learned that “there’s no reason why a civilian should own weapons that are only meant for combat.” Oh, yes, sadly, there is a reason, a horrifying one indeed. It’s in case our government ever got so corrupt that we had to have another revolution. A revolution is a WAR. Which is why the Founders wrote the Second Amendment: to protect our right to be fully and sufficiently armed. In case we ever had to fight against our own government the way we had to in 1776 — via a WAR. Pray to God every day that we never have to do this. Revolutions are horrible: years of bloody filthy despair, dirty water, starving children, rape in the streets. Revolution is WAR. Please don’t ever throw this word around in casual speech (like Bernie Sanders does, unfortunately). Revolution is a very specific type of fight: pray that fate never calls you to such a battle. Because it will end in death even if it ends in victory. Bottom line? No conservative flips on this issue. Many liberal Dems love guns and the Second Amendment. You don’t have to be liberal or conservative to love guns. You just have to love your country. To the literal death. So get real. And then get thee to a gun show.
Next piece of BS:
I also learned that seeking asylum is a human right, and that immigrants who are fleeing for their lives deserve it. Yet, the Trump administration is inhumanely violating this right by separating families at the border.
Wrong. Obama separated kids from adults in their “families” at the borders first. It was one of a few good things he did that Trump has continued. Go bury your head in the sand if you don’t want to learn about human trafficking. In the past — prior to Obama past — DHS agents were more likely to release families with children than someone with no child after they were detained for crossing the border into the United States from Mexico illegally. OH DOES THIS CREATE AN INCENTIVE TO LITERALLY RENT A CHILD IN ORDER TO MANIPULATE BORDER AGENTS INTO RELEASING “FAMILIES”? Why, yes! You want to know what it costs to rent a child on average? $130. Now, what’s the value you would appraise your child at? Little bit higher? Oh, come now, it’s only for a few weeks! Yeah, go jump off a cliff, you CHILD TRAFFICKING ENABLING SICKOS. And thank you, President Trump for having DHS DNA test these “asylum seekers” to see if they are actually related to the children they are using as props. Oh, you didn’t like the link to Breitbart as evidence? How about this link to a CBS article about it from 2014? Oh look, inflation hasn’t caused the price of A HUMAN BEING CHILD to go up. Aside: Yes, seeking asylum is considered to be a human right. A request can be made at any official port of entry. But the use of the word “human right” is not a phrase a conservative would use. They might use the phrase “natural right,” “God-given right” or “Constitutionally protected” but they are generally highly sensitive to using any language that implies entitlement and often avoid saying the word “deserve.” YES, opinions change. Speech patterns — in an adult person over the age of 25 whose brain has completely finished growing — don’t. A person, of any political persuasion, is very unlikely to start using words that their core values and morals have compelled them not to use for years. The authors of this piece of hogwash weren’t even trying to sound believable.
This next part sticks out like a sore thumb:
Barack Obama constantly talked about empathy, the need for us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. My journey is ongoing.
Then the author goes on to say, “I’ve learned what Islam is really about and all the good Muslims have done for America” and how similar Christianity and Judaism and Islam are. Fair enough, they’re all three abrahamic religions, but why bring up Obama? Why? I supported Obama for 8 years and I don’t remember him “constantly” talking about empathy or putting ourselves in other people’s shoes. And again, why the Obama puff piece? Is something bad about to come out about him? What does Obama’s soaring rhetoric from 2012 have to do with Elizabeth Warren running for President in 2020?
Next piece of BS, the closing statement by this so-called Elizabeth Warren supporter.
Do I agree with all of her policies? Absolutely not. But even with my disagreements, I believe she is the most put-together candidate to move our country forward.
Move our country forward? Again, the antithesis to Making America Great AGAIN (going back) is moving forward. And “put together”? That’s a reason we vote for people? No, that’s the reason we hire them to be a pharmaceutical company sales rep. “She was so polished and professional and put-together.” LOL, these people should write for SNL and Make SNL Funny Again! Put together. (Shakes head, maternally, with a mix of amusement and pity.) No one ever won a presidency because they were put together.
SO: was this thing written by a DIA intern over the summer? Do I get a prize for guessing right? LOL, did General John “Guilty as Charged” Kelly help edit it? Wait, was he like, “be sure to use the word myopic twice in reference to the Second Amendment”?? Because I want to really get this straight: we’re supposed to believe a Ted Cruz supporter would flip to Trump … and then to the Democratic Party and then …. to Elizabeth Warren? Really???????????????????
Thank you for reading, this was a long one! I would love your feedback below. And to support me on patreon, please click here. To follow me on twitter, please click here.
**Now, it’s possible a person could vote for Trump in 2016 and Warren in 2020, maybe if they were Catholic and came from a long line of family members who’d been a part of the Catholic Workers party, for example a nurse or other medical care provider who believed in subsidized healthcare for all, as part of upholding the belief in the sanctity of human life. I went to school and was educated by these people/nuns at a Catholic all girls school from 7th through 12th grade–when they say they are pro-life, they look over their shoulder as if Archangel Michael himself is going to smite them if they are morally inconsistent about it and don’t help the sick and the poor, whether pre- or post-birth.
Overall, if we estimate the raw totals using these percentages while working off of Trump’s nearly 63 million votes and Clinton’s almost 66 million votes, the ANES data suggest that about 8.4 million 2012 Obama voters backed Trump in 2016 and 2.5 million Romney voters supported Clinton. Click here to see the source site.
Today, I submitted my resume and cover letter online to apply to work for the Trump Campaign in 2020 (or sooner!??). Flipping Virginia from blue to red is 100% doable. Here is how I pitched it in front of the White House on this lovely chilly snow-free Christmas Day.
And here was my pitch to the Hiring Team in my cover letter (I have removed one paragraph that specifically named references).
Dear Mr Parscale and the Trump 2020 Campaign Hiring Team:
This past June, I packed up my ’93 Cadillac Deville with everything I own and drove from St Paul, MN to Washington, DC with the sole purpose of inserting myself into the political scene here in our nation’s capitol and doing everything I possibly can, via youtube, twitter and periscope, to advance President Trump’s America First agenda. Now that the 2020 campaign is on the verge of ignition, my goal is to actively reach out to voters and “flip” them, from blue to red. As a former Obama voter who flipped from blue to red in 2016, I am uniquely motivated and equipped to reach other past Obama voters, establish rapport with them, and convert them to voting for President Trump in 2020 for the same reasons I did in 2016: bringing back manufacturing jobs, renegotiating “free trade” agreements, ending endless war (as Obama promised to in 2008), fixing the sham health care reform that was Obamacare and actually bringing down insurance premiums and prescription drug costs, and preserving social security for our seniors. Since learning — from POTUS on twitter! — that a lack of a secure border with Mexico is costing American taxpayers millions of dollars in benefits to illegal aliens and millions more to imprison criminal aliens in federal prison, to say nothing of the endless human trafficking and drug trafficking that only a wall can significantly reduce, I have now come to support not just an increase in border protection agents but “the wall” as well. I now communicate to others who misunderstand the border security issue (and admittedly, I used to be one of them) these three talking points: 1) Trump is using basic common sense when he says, “without borders, you don’t have a country.” The United States is our house. Of course people can visit but they can’t break in through the back door. Would you break into someone’s house? Of course you would never. 2) Obama’s catch & release policy was the best thing to happen to human traffickers since burner phones: Trump’s catch & detain policy prevents the supply of exploitable human beings that would otherwise be seen as a source of unpaid labor by traffickers on both sides of the border who work together to place illegal aliens from the shadows into situations that amount to indentured servitude or worse. 3) Senators Schumer, Clinton and Obama are all on record as supporting billions of dollars for border security when Bush was president in 2006 when they voted for the Secure Fence Act, which passed! The truth is Dems are perfectly happy to build a wall: they just don’t want Trump to get credit for it.
Click on the photo and Sarah’s twitter will open in a new window
I want to personally flip the state of Virginia from blue to red. My intention is to move from DC to Virginia so that I can vote for President Trump in Virginia in 2020. Each state is a battle in this 50 state war and I am uniquely equipped to flip socially liberal yet security minded Northern Virginians. Most of them voted for Obama in 2012 and 2008, just like me. I envision myself tabling at malls, events, and college campuses with a sign that says, “ASK ME WHY I VOTED FOR OBAMA IN 2012 AND TRUMP IN 2016.” As many as nine million Americans made that switch. As a good friend of mine (who votes absentee ballot in Ohio) says, “Americans vote for the person, not the party. And everyone loves a winner.” Please give me the opportunity to win Virginia for President Trump as a member of your re-election campaign team.
FACTS
Flipping Virginia is 100% doable. It’s a matter of three components: first, Trump’s opponent only won by 5.4% in 2016 in Virginia. Second, 5.9% of all votes in Virginia went to third party candidates; and third, an unknown percentage chose not to vote at all because they assumed Virginia would go blue so they didn’t even bother to show up. This means that the pool of voters to “flip” need not even be from the pool of 2016 Democrat voters. We can convert third party voters, people who didn’t bother to show up, plus the thousands of newly eligible to vote Generation Z students on college campuses.
WINNING
Currently, I am on a one woman crusade to motivate Trump supporters and combat trolls as part of my daily #TrumpTrain2020 periscope campaign. Every day since the midterms, I have done a livestream and my number of viewers grows daily. I talk about whatever the issue of the day might be and remind people to vote and/or to register to vote. Every day, I broadcast the number of days till the election (678 as of today, Christmas Day 2018); and I break the news to the haters: Not only is Trump going to win the electoral college in 2020, he’s going to win the popular vote, by a landslide.
PASSION
President Trump says, “Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.” I have the energy to knock on every door in Virginia (but let’s skip Comey’s house). I could do it much faster with a team though! Please consider me for a role in voter outreach in Northern Virginia. I am prepared to move to Virginia as soon as you want me to, and I look forward to speaking with you soon!
Here’s what to say, how to call, and the video of me saying it on the White House comment line!
(For those who think Wikileaks is “Russian Wikileaks” or think that there is some conspiracy between Julian Assange and Russia, you’ve been dis-informed and for that I am deeply sorry because our country is being divided and conquered. **scroll down if you already know this part** You may or may not think that the leakers themselves should be prosecuted — that’s a different issue. Seth Rich was the leaker of the DNC emails, and I believe he is the 21st Century Nathan Hale; he quite literally died (was murdered) for the freedom of Americans in order to expose corruption of a ruling party, and the collusion between the DNC and a primary candidate to ensure a particular outcome in an election process for the leader of the United States of America in 2016. Please learn more about why Seth Rich is the 21st Century Nathan Hale by clicking here. And see the tweets below in order to learn more about Wikileaks as a news organization. Wikileaks is an equal opportunity publisher: if there is corruption in ANY government and they get their hands on proof of it, they WILL publish it.
And, author of this piece Nozomi Hayase @nozomimagine reminds us that @wikileaks isn’t targeting the US by any stretch of the imagination. Corruption is the target: this is why @JulianAssange published >650,000 critical documents concerning Putin’s Russia https://t.co/o49FTkbEUu
From Wikileaks: “Russia’s laws – especially the new Yarovaya Law – make literally no distinction between Lawful Interception and mass surveillance by state intelligence authorities (SIAs) without court orders. Russian communication providers are required by Russian law to install the so-called SORM ( Система Оперативно-Розыскных Мероприятий) components for surveillance provided by the FSB at their own expense. The SORM infrastructure is developed and deployed in Russia with close cooperation between the FSB, the Interior Ministry of Russia and Russian surveillance contractors.”
So, newsflash, Wikileaks wants to expose corruption wherever it finds it, not just in the US government.
If you film yourselfcalling the White House, and tweet me with the link on twitter at @Sarah__Reynolds, I will embed it on this website!! The script I used is below this video.
PROFANITY ALERT: here’s my attempt from the day before, but I called too late in the day to get to leave my comment. You do speak to a real human being, but you have to call 1 (202) 456-1111 between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Time. I was slightly irritated by this because during the Obama Administration when I called and read the 8th Amendment over the phone during the time Manning was being held at Quantico with no blanket and forced to be naked and cold, I didn’t have to be transferred to the comment line. So, you can watch that video too. (Ok, I drop one tinyF-bomb. No big whoop!)
LONG VERSION of the Script (also great for copy/pasting into the online comment form online or into a handwritten letter; scroll down for the short version)
Hi, my name is ____ and I’m calling from (city, state, country).
——————————————-
[SKIP THIS NEXT SENTENCE IF YOU’RE NOT A SUPPORTER OF TRUMP]
I am a supporter of President Trump, I voted for him in 2016 (and plan on voting for him again in 2020). (please don’t say you’re planning on voting for him again in 2020 if you’re not going to)
——————————————–
Today I’m calling to ask the President to grant Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of Wikileaks, a preemptive pardon and to ask him to direct the Justice Department to drop all charges against Mr Assange and Wikileaks. The New York Times, the Guardian, and the Washington Post all published news articles based on the documents published by Wikileaks, and even the New York Times’ own General counsel has said that prosecuting Assange would set “a very very bad precedent for publishers …” and that “the Law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between the New York Times and Wikileaks.” The First Amendment protects the American people’s right to read news articles, whether printed on paper or published online, and the Founders guaranteed this right as part of the very first Amendment because they knew that freedom of the press was foundational to preserving our constitutional republic.
President Trump said, “I love wikileaks” over and over again at his 2016 campaign rallies, and the American people cheered his brave appreciation for Wikileaks’ willingness to publish emails that revealed corruption and collusion at the highest levels of our American government, as evidence in both the DNC emails and Podesta emails shows.
So I ask President Trump to work with other world leaders to ensure Mr Assange’s safe passage from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to his home country of Australia. Additionally, he has been granted asylum by Ecuador, and the United States and the United Kingdom should respect the protected status of Mr Assange under international law.
Thank you very much.
SHORTER:
Hi, my name is ________.
I’m calling to ask President Trump to grant Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of Wikileaks, a preemptive pardon and to ask him to direct the Justice Department to drop all charges against Mr Assange and Wikileaks. As Assange has been granted asylum by Ecuador, the United States and the United Kingdom should respect the protected status of Mr Assange under international law; and so I ask President Trump to work with other world leaders to ensure Mr Assange’s safe passage from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to his home country of Australia.
The most interesting thing about Vault 7? Nope, not the eavesdropping phone, hackable car, or spying microwave — it was this response from Julian Assange to a question tweeted at him during a virtual press conference.
Is there proof that the CIA is involved in an internal struggle, leaking as opposed to something else?
The video below is embedded to start at exactly 18 minutes and 22 seconds so you can see where he reads the question and “answers” it.
If you’ve read my previous body language/speech pattern analysis posts, you’ll recall the three elements of communication: 1) the words that are coming out of the person’s mouth (i.e. what they’re saying), 2) what they’re really saying, and 3)what they’re specifically not saying or trying not to say or omitting consciously or unconsciously — this third component is sometimes the most revealing.
For the sake of brevity, I’m only going to analyze this one question and the one answer Julian gave on March 9, 2017. I use all caps when a person, in this case Julian, unconsciously emphasizes a certain syllable or word in their speech. These are weak spots, places where their societal mask slips for a second. Julian Assange is unique: he has zero poker face and is a remarkably guile-less person for someone who is so hellbent on exposing the sins of others. This is usually the indicator of a person who really does have nothing to hide and whose motives are sincerely pure. Consider for a moment that before the first dump — I want to say the Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning leaks of the GTMO files and Iraq War logs — he asked the US State Dept to help him redact documents for national security purposes but the State Dept refused to in any way acknowledge Wikileaks as legit — until later, when they were forced to as a part of damage control. It’s very interesting. Many people recoil at the totally uncensored unredacted version of reality that wikileaks presents precisely because most people do have something to hide, or at least something that would make them feel bad or ashamed if it became public. Julian Assange doesn’t — at least his candid, almost childlike inability to self-censor, would lend itself to that conclusion.
(Full disclosure: I was very pleased with the Manning leaks as well as the DNC and Podesta email leaks but thought the CWA leaks were really over the top and unnecessary — and mean. So, I like true whistleblowing not pointless privacy violation.)
Julian reads a question from twitter: “Is there proof that the CIA are involved in internal struggle, leaking as opposed to [he pauses, he furrows his brow, he looks up] something else?”
“Uhhh, while … we can’t comment directly on sourcing [HE NODS HIS HEAD UP AND DOWN — lol], as someone who’s studied the behavior of intelligence agencies for many years in different countries, it is an unusual time in the United States to see an intelligence agency so prominently involved [this is the best – he looks away then quickly back, emphasizing the syllable VOLVED in involved] in domestic politics. Now, as a sort of lev-level of PRINCIPLE, that’s quite problematic. There are arguments on the other side that — obviously — if there’s an extreme … uh, government, uh, then perhaps that does call for … illegal behavior … uh, by an intelligence agency. Uh, we don’t have an opinion uh, on whether or not that is the case. Yet. We’re not the United States. Uh, Wikileaks is, um, in- I guess, in- intellectually inTRIGUED to see this conflict occurring, uh, because it does tend to generATE whistleblowers and sources on both sides of the equation.”
This was an easy one. Assange answered it affirmatively in multiple ways, but I bolded the clearest yes. The question was, is there a struggle? And Julian said Wikileaks see[s] this conflict occurring. But he first answered the question right off the bat by nodding his head repeatedly while saying he can’t comment directly on sourcing. So the words coming out of his mouth were neither a yes nor a no, but his body – his right brain, the truthteller and confessor – wanted the asker of this intellectually intriguing question to know, YES, and you hit the nail on the head! And by the way, not only do we see this conflict occurring, the conflict is generating sources on BOTH sides of the equation.
Note the use of the word source. Now if you saw the recent Comey hearing where the FBI Director confirmed to a member of Congress that it is not illegal for a member of the intel committee (Senators or Representatives on the panel) to lie to the news media the second they walk out of a closed hearing, even though all the other members of congress who were present will know that one of them has lied to the media after the evening news or morning paper comes out, then you know that fake news is LITERALLY fake news on these special occasions.
Comey doesn't want to break our hearts but IT'S NOT A CRIME FOR A SENATOR TO LIE TO WAPO https://t.co/gNEJu4vK3o start 3:22:42, end 3:24:08
AND it’s also not illegal for members of the intel community (those “anonymous officials” cited by the media) to lie to the media. So there are two streams leading to the pool of fake news (two sources): the IC members themselves or the members of congress who are briefed by them (usually under oath — maybe the media should start requiring their sources to swear under oath before accepting the leaks of unsubstantiated unverifiable claims). So when Assange says source, and he’s answering a question about a good vs evil battle within the CIA, and he’s contrasting sources and whistleblowers on both sides, he’s signally (unconsciously) that there are sources who are good and sources who are … not good, and may be providing bad intel for bad reasons.
Now let’s look at part of Julian’s statement more closely:
“It is an unusual time in the United States to see an intelligence agency so prominently involved [he looks away then quickly back, emphasizing the syllable VOLVED in involved] in domestic politics.”
This is a nonstatement on its face: an unusual time? Is there ever a usual time for an intelligence agency to be involved in domestic politics? No. But those are the words coming out of his mouth. But that’s not what he’s *really* saying. He’s really saying two things: 1) that it’s an unusual time in the United States (!), and 2) that he sees AN intelligence agency prominently involved in domestic politics. And notice his interesting eye movement on “involved.” Then close your eyes and listen to that sentence again.
He says it the way you warn a friend who arrives unexpectedly at your front door that the person they’ve been trying to avoid is in your living room RIGHT NOW by mentioning their name out of context while looking in the direction of said living room. “Get it?” Julian is saying. “InVOLVED?!?” For all we know, someone from AN intelligence agency *is* right there in his living room. Which leads me to the next bizarre thing Mr Mumbler says … (sorry, Julian, but sometimes you really do give an amateur speech pattern analyst a run for her money).
“Uh, we don’t have an opinion uh, on whether or not that is the case. Yet. We’re not the United States.” Ok, Julian, we know you’re not the United States. We know Wikileaks is not the United States. So then why does he feel compelled to clarify that, or declare it, as it were? Plus he could have an opinion on a potential battle existing inside the CIA regardless of whether or not Wikileaks is involved with the United States. Now, we can’t really know unless he tells us why but the important thing to notice for our purposes is that he side-eyed on inVOLVED and … hey, everybody, Wikileaks is not the United States. Ok?? So even if they somehow used a macrame invisibility poncho to get into the room with him, he, Julian Assange, is still saying what he wants to say. Ok?? Okey dokey.
Finally, he mentions that he is intellectually inTRIGUED by the conflict inside the CIA, this internal struggle that he is SEEing. That is not (probably) what he intended to say because he probably didn’t mean to confirm that one exists. But we know that when someone answers using the same word (or a synonym) that was used in the question (as with “struggle” and “conflict,”) that they are being generally nonevasive – in other words, if he avoided any use of the word or avoided the topic of internal struggle altogether, it would more likely that he was being untruthful. This was yet another way he answered this question affirmatively.
And notice the word “intrigue” popping out of his mouth to say, “hai hai!” He can’t help but to use and say this word. Why? Because it means collusion, conspiracy or subterfuge. He could have used any word to express how intellectually interested or fascinated he was with the prospect of an internal struggle inside the CIA, a battle between patriots and traitors, warriors & election meddlers. But his truth-teller right brain picked “intrigued”!
Feeling patriotic? Sell your gas-guzzling absolute monarchy-funding, human rights tragedy-perpetuating car and buy an electric car! Let’s all stop voting with our dollars for public beheadings, public lashings, internet censorship, repression of speech, an absence of an independent free press, and woman-hating kings who make life a fascist regime hell for their subjects in Saudi Arabia by donating to their cause every time we purchase gasoline.
I’ve said before that we vote in three ways, first with our actual ballot at the polls; second, with our dollars, with which we vote affirmatively for all the laws and policies of the government of the country the product is manufactured in when we buy it; and third, with our time, minutes and hours we spend assenting to the practices of the major corporations who create our news, our television, our music, and our books, by spending that time reading/watching/listening to it (to say nothing of the free advertising we give away every time we wear branded clothing/shoes/handbags, etc.). And because we get to vote at the polls once a year at the most, we technically do much more voting with our time and money — especially when we pay our taxes, in which case we re-vote, and confirm the presence of every member of Congress, and second their every legislative move.
This is why it’s so important to sign petitions and write to Congress regularly, reminding them that they work for us and promising them that we will fire them next election day if they don’t do what we want. Hey, that’s how lobbyists do it. It’s an incredibly effective strategy. Less than a third of eligible voters turned out last mid-term election — how many voters would you guess actually picked up the phone and called their one Rep and two Senators? Guarantee lobbyists picked up the phone. Multiple times. And showed up in person.
So every time we fill our cars up with gas, we are voting with our dollars for the laws and policies of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, most American gasoline’s country of origin. Now, I was ten during the first war in Iraq, the Gulf War that began in 1991, and I remember my mom calling me downstairs to watch President George H W Bush on the TV in the family room so that she could teach me the body language of lying. As he yammered about how urgent it was to declare war (a declaration that started the instability in Iraq we are still fighting today; people often refer to our 2003 invasion as the impetus, but this blogger suggests that our 1991 invasion is a better historical peg), my mom said to me, “You’re watching the President of the United States lie to the American people on live national television. Now, I want you to watch his face.” Now in my little SNL’d brain, I immediately thought of Dana Carvey and his brilliant impression of Bush the first, and my mom, anticipating this, told me it was not time to improve my comedy routine; it was time to learn the facial ticks and speech blips of liars. (I put my GHWB hand gestures back into my pockets and put “Not gonna do it” firmly out of my head.) So she says, “Now, Sarah Louise, there are people who lie, people who lie pathologically, and people like this man who look straight into the camera when they lie. No compunction whatsoever.” (Me: “What’s compunction?” Mom: “No qualms.” Me: “What’s a qualm?” Mom: “Jesus, Sarah, what do I look like, a human dictionary?” Me, nodding sweetly: “Yep.” Later she made me look up compunction and qualms in the big dictionary in the dining room. Thanks, mom.) After the address from the Oval Office was over, we talked (she talked, I listened) a bit more about the nature of someone who could feel gratified by getting away with deceiving millions of people and how they are few and far between in every day life but very frequently found in people who occupy positions of authority in government.
Now, this was a game we played with lots of public figures on the glowing oracle-box of truth (the TV) over the years; for example, a year later, we would watch the Bush/Perot/Clinton debates together and she would tell me that the difference between George H W Bush and Bill Clinton was that Clinton actually believed his own lies. But that night, on the eve of Desert Storm in 1991, she just wanted to me to know that the most important thing to remember about the United States’ involvement in the Middle East was that it was about oil. Period.
Long story short, our military protection of the Saudi regime is how we protect our access to cheap, readily available oil.
If your next question is why, let me be the first to admit that Abby Martin’s answer rivals the one my mom gave me twenty-five years ago. (Ok, truth: Abby’s 27 minute answer is so thorough, so concise, and so well-researched that it is actually better than my mom’s — and if my mom were alive, she would love Abby Martin and agree.) The historical perspective provided in the episode of the Empire Files embedded below tells you everything you need to know, going all the way back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. And it makes it very very clear that our “dependence” on oil is actually the Saudi monarchy’s dependence on US consumption of their oil. But, long story short, the answer to “why?” is that our military protection of their regime is how we protect our access to cheap, readily available oil.
This is a paradigm 100% in our power to change. We don’t have to buy gas. We don’t have to vote with our dollars for monarchs who believe it’s okay for women to vote as long as the men they live with and are financially dependent on give them permission to leave the house. We don’t have to collectively prop up a regime that denies due process (what courts? oh, secret courts with “private” trials), a regime that beheads people for stealing, for being gay, and for objecting to abuse of power by the government and protesting that injustice in public, in print or online, a regime that lashes women for being raped (yes, a woman who is raped will receive more public lashings than her rapist), a regime that is destinedto be overthrown. And it knows it. As Abby Martin points out in her brilliant withering expose, the House of Saud is scared — and they should be. History hasn’t been kind to kings.
I'm sorry I'm only getting around to watching @AbbyMartin's amazing expose now: https://t.co/o6DedWVAGW. In 2008, I sold my car, choosing…
Also, please sign this petition asking the UN to remove Saudi Arabia from the Human Rights Council:
Click on the image to go to the petition.
**Brief Aside: I managed to find the No Compunction, No Qualms speech from 1991 on youtube. Watch it here. Notice GHWB trip up on the word diplomatic starting at the 53 second mark. No, flubbing a word isn’t always an indicator of dishonesty. In this case it is.
**Second brief aside: Have you ever watched the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Try watching it again with this whole new additional perspective.
Messages to Millennials 