Author Archives: oinsketta

Crimes Against Humanity

Human beings, capable of the most heroic acts of generosity, mercy and kindness, are also nature’s most feared killers. Whenever we organize to kill other groups of human beings, the history of the killing is written forever in the blood of the losers. The terms “Crimes Against Humanity” and “genocide” are used with a delicate selectivity as refined as the greatest works of Mozart. These arguable atrocities are seen as fit subjects for debate, often involving a cost/benefit analysis that always argues how many good lives were saved by killing however many had to be killed, however regrettable their deaths may otherwise have been.

Millions of Americans are currently worked up about a lame duck president who golfs, rage tweets lies and plans super-spreader Christmas parties, while fighting the recommendations of our top epidemiologists, as our pandemic numbers soar, the American death rate 500% our proportion of the world population. Millions of other Americans defend their leader’s dedication to freedom from tyranny. The president is right in abdicating his so-called duties to a nation of traitors after power was openly stolen from him by a nationwide conspiracy of dangerous, sick individuals — AND MILLIONS ARE ACTING LIKE THIS STOLEN ELECTION IS PERFECTLY FINE!

This debate, by itself, shows how fucked up homo sapiens are, how intractably many will defend demonstrable lies, defend even the most wanton public homicide. If you believe the first job of government is to protect the health and safety of the citizens who elect that government, well, the debate seems unfairly one-sided — a president who weaponizes rage while hospitals and morgues overflow and medical precautions are desperately needed to curb mass death is, at best, a failed leader.

I was surprised to learn that as many Japanese died in the little known American fire-bombing of Tokyo as in either of the two cities famously vaporized by American atom bombs at the end of the war [1]. I wasn’t surprised to learn that after Genghis Khan’s army had taken a city, sacked it, raped the women, took slaves, they returned a day later, two days later, to find and execute anyone cowering in hiding. The infamous My Lai Massacre, the March 16, 1968 slaughter of as many as six hundred unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, ended in the court martial and conviction of the lieutenant who ordered the massacre. Nixon quietly let the lieutenant off the hook [2].

Vietnam veterans, and Vietnamese survivors, have stated that countless such massacres took place in the course of that insane war, My Lai was the only one that was ever front page news, with a photo spread of the terrified and the dead in LIFE magazine. The My Lai massacre is only known today because of the heroic actions of an American helicopter crew who faced down the soldiers who had gone berserk– and an award-winning war photographer, embedded with the unit that slaughtered the inhabitants of My Lai, who captured the killing in progress.

We all know the savagery our fellow “wise apes” are capable of. Look no further than a few months back: three policemen pulling a black man out of his car, on suspicion that he’d passed a counterfeit twenty dollar bill, handcuffing him and kneeling on his neck, minute after agonizing minute, until he was dead. You can google it now Killing of George Floyd video and count down the eight minute and forty-six second lynching documented on a high school girl’s unflinching cellphone video. As Nixon said about sparing Lt. Calley, the man convicted for ordering the atrocity in My Lai, “nobody gives a shit about more dead gooks, Henry.”

Here is the well-born Jared Kushner, the boob that Mr. Trump relates to so much, so similar are their origin stories (alongside two photos from March 16, 1968 in My Lai). Kushner and Trump are two self-made multi-talented geniuses who had minimal help from overbearing billionaire fathers. Let us forget (and really, why mention it?) that, but for incredible luck and considerable cunning, Jared’s grandparents could easily have been featured in black and white photos similar to the ones above, in the Nazi ravaged Europe of the early 1940s.

Jared’s portfolio, as Hand of Mr. Trump, included solving the opioid crisis, making peace in the Middle East, reorganizing the federal government and, most recently, leading the American federal effort to rein in a highly infectious, deadly novel virus.

In his role as Pandemic Czar, Kushner publicly chafed at the idea that the federal government needed to give the states any of its stockpiles of PPE or anything else needed to curtail the virus which will soon have killed 300,000 Americans. “Those are OUR stockpiles!” he insisted nonsensically, with a whiny idiocy that is impossible to unhear.

Then, on April 30, 2020, over 220,000 COVID-19 deaths ago, Mr. Kushner announced:

And blah blah blah. I know you are but what am I? Make me! Suck it, CUCK! Loser!

America boasts 614 billionaires. During the less than nine months of the official pandemic their total net worth rose from $2.95 trillion to $4 trillion. Four trillion looks like this: $4,000,000,000,000. It is four thousand billion– each billion is a thousand million.

Unthinkable, and unfair, as it is for me to mention this, a tiny fraction of this enormous windfall of over $1,000,000,000,000 could go a long way toward easing the misery of millions of Americans more desperate, hungry and in legitimate fear of homelessness and death than at any time since the Great Depression. What I am suggesting, as we all know, is Marxism 101. The most powerful forces of our great nation, the best of us, idealists intent on preserving unlimited liberty above even human life, have an instant and irrefutable rebuttal to my sick and dangerous suggestion: Fuck You.

I suppose that’s a gentler response than a firebomb with a 16 mile radius.

[1]

On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

source

The real mortality of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan will never be known. The destruction and overwhelming chaos made orderly counting impossible. It is not unlikely that the estimates of killed and wounded in Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) are over conservative.

At no time during the period between 1943 and 1946 were facilities allotted, or time provided, for the Medical Section of the Manhattan Engineer District to prepare a comprehensive history of its activities. Regulations forbade notetaking. Official records were scanty. There were few charts and photographs.

source

[2]

The day after the verdict, Nixon ordered Calley released from the post stockade and placed under house arrest in the Fort Benning bachelor officer quarters. Appeals would eventually reduce his punishment to time served.

source

Take Care of Yourself, friend

There are things you love to do. You should do them. When things are at their worst, at their scariest, when life on our planet is teetering on the brink of extinction, it is imperative to remember to cherish the things we love and to do them often.

The people we love too, of course, of course, we have to try extra hard to take good care of them. It is more important now than at other times to show them as much mercy and kindness as you have in your heart, and that goes for mercy and kindness toward yourself too in this terrifying, aggravating time. But what I am talking about now is doing the things that make us happiest, that restore us to ourselves. It is super important now to remember them, and do them often.

I love to play music. I am a good guitar player and a limited, though functional piano player. Few things I know compare to the pure joyful relaxation that takes over once the guitar is staying in tune (cold weather, and sudden changes in temperature, can really mess with the strings), the instrument is warm in your hands and the musical sounds emerge as beautifully as you can make them. Take a beat, if you like, swing another beat against it. It’s probably as close as I’ll ever come to taking off and soaring on thermals, or gliding a mile under a perfect ocean.

The words you are reading now, something else that gives me great pleasure to put together. Obviously, I spend time every day doing this. I am compelled, but, also, I love to do it.

Cooking a tasty, healthy meal, something I’ve always liked to do, has taken on more meaning to me during this lockdown as Sekhnet feels up against the daily horrors and it is a comfort to us both to share a fresh meal that is actually good for us. I am starting to love the whole process of making a pot or pan of something good.

Walking is something I’ve always liked to do. Now that I have arthritis in both knees, it has become a necessity for me to walk throughout the day, to avoid pain. An hour or two in nature, breathing in the trees, is always a beautiful thing. I love certain moments of my long daily walk. There is a time, after walking long enough, when the stiffness and soreness in my knees melts away. The pleasure of sitting on a bench after thirty minutes of purposefully striding along — I love it.

Odd to say, though I’ve always loved to draw, and make all kinds of marks on paper, have always carried a drawing book with me, and several of my favorite pens and pencils, I’ve done virtually no drawing or calligraphy during this pandemic nightmare.

I showed a friend’s super-talented granddaughter how to do simple stop frame animation the other day. Under the mounted camera I drew a simple face and quickly showed her the principle of making animation out of two or more carefully registered drawings (or in this case, two stages of the same drawing).

I explained to her that you can later make the drawing as colorful or detailed as you like, photograph it and add the changes to the animation. (We were working outside in a park, so our art supplies were quite limited). At home afterwards I decided to refine the drawing above to demonstrate this idea to her. You will understand at once, I think, why I decided not to send her the drawing.

Who wants to look into those bizarre, hopeless, death-haunted eyes? Certainly not a sensitive seven year-old who is living through one of the worst periods in recent human history.

Shoot, maybe that’s why I’m not drawing these days. More than in anything else I do, my subconscious emerges most freely in drawings. I can play a stiff version of a beautiful tune on the piano, it’s not great music, but it doesn’t have even a hint of the terror in the face above. Perhaps I’ll try a bit of calligraphy later.

For now, do yourself a kindness. Think of something you love to do, maybe have forgotten about in your overwhelmed concern about the simultaneous and intrusive plagues that are upon us now, and do it. You will thank yourself afterwards, I’m pretty sure. Even if you don’t thank yourself (ingrate!) time is never wasted doing something you love to do.

groove for Plague Mice, collaboration with PG, 5-16-20 (with thanks to Jimi for the bassline)

Corrupt Pardon corruptly given, just the start, boys and girls

We all know Mr. Trump will preemptively pardon virtually everybody left in his administration, his own children and son-in-law, along with Rudy Giuliani, former volunteer campaign manager Paul Manafort and anyone else who testified in the Mueller probe and may yet be vulnerable to prosecution or, more importantly, giving evidence against Donald J. Trump.

Trump has been America’s most fast and loose president, a man whose open abuse of power and obstruction of every investigation, including contesting and trying to obstruct the legal certification of an election, was supported by a group of powerful enablers. Senators, including the head juror at the impeachment trial, vowed to work closely with the president’s defense team to quickly acquit their leader. They argued that impeachment for mere abuse of power and obstruction of Congress was a naked political vendetta after a failed “witch hunt” led by Democrats irrationally furious that Trump beat “Crooked Hillary”. Apparently 74,000,000 of our fellow Americans agreed with those 51 or 52 senators who quickly acquitted old Honest Don, the self-proclaimed greatest friend of America’s coloreds since “Honest” Abe.

Here’s a quick run through the “Flynn thing” Trump asked James Comey to let go of during a private charm offensive he launched before firing the disloyal FBI director early in his term. You’ll recall that it was his firing of Comey, which he admitted on TV he did to stop the Russia probe, that forced the DOJ to appoint Special Prosecutor Mueller in the first place. So with this pardon of Flynn, ending the “Flynn thing,” we end where it all began.

Flynn, who led the “Lock her up!” chants at Trump rallies, became Trump’s first National Security Advisor. He didn’t disclose on his security clearance forms that he was on the payroll of Turkey at the time, or that he’d recently taken money from Russia. Which Trump understood, since if Flynn had done that he couldn’t have received security clearance or served as DNI.

Flynn then lied to Mike Pence about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador during the transition. It had only been a few phone calls, to assure the Russians that Trump was going to lift the sanctions against them, sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in response to what was later proven to have been massive Russian interference to throw the 2016 election to Donald Trump.

This so-called evidence of “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference on behalf of Trump was found during a several round witch hunt that even included a Republican-led Senate Committee. All a huge lie, according to the Republican party who echoed the president’s strong feelings on the matter.

Flynn, who was quickly, reluctantly, fired by Trump after three weeks on the job, lied to the FBI. He was then charged with making false statements to the FBI. He signed a plea deal and became, for a while, a cooperating witness with the Mueller probe. He told the federal judge who accepted his guilty plea that he prayed and that God had urged him to come clean, to admit his past wrong actions and move on with his life.

Then, on the eve of sentencing, he hired a lawyer too crazy even for wild Rudy Giuliani and the current Trump dead-ender legal team, a raving and aggressive attorney named Sidney Powell. Recently she’s gotten a lot of bad press for appearing to be completely insane on television.

Powell convinced Flynn that he was the victim of a traitorous conspiracy and that, since he was actually innocent, that he must withdraw his guilty plea. She worked closely with Bill Barr, obtaining the entire FBI file from the DOJ. She and Barr agreed, after reviewing everything very carefully, that the crime Flynn had pleaded guilty to was not a crime, his lies had been “immaterial”, and besides, he had been trapped by unscrupulous, partisan FBI agents who hated Trump.

In other words, the things Flynn admitted lying about were not of any real legal consequence, certainly not crimes. They were the kind of lies anyone trapped by clever, vicious partisans from the FBI might have told, under the circumstances. Barr moved to withdraw the case, forget the guilty plea, make the whole thing just disappear.

The federal judge, Emmet Sullivan, a man of great integrity and long experience, would not oblige, and under the law, the case could only be dismissed after the judge reviewed it and signed off on the dismissal. Barr and Powell argued that the judge had no right to review the case and they made motions to the appellate court to overrule Sullivan’s insistence on holding a hearing before dismissing the case. They were joined in this plea by many top Republican Senators and Congressmen, acting as “friends of the court”.

Powell, with Barr’s support, convinced a three judge appellate panel to order Judge Sullivan to immediately dismiss the case by granting a very rare form of relief called a writ of mandamus.

Two of the three judges on the panel, both appointed by Mr. Trump, ruled that Mr. Trump’s discretionary power to prosecute was absolute as was his power to change his mind, with or without explanation to any judge, and that Sullivan was illegally attempting to usurp the Executive power granted by Article II of the Constitution.

The appellate judge who dissented pointed out that there was a clear legal test before mandamus could be ordered; namely that the person asking had no other legal relief available. Flynn had the ordinary appeal of anything Sullivan may have done at the hearing that he felt violated his rights and so was not eligible for a writ of mandamus.

Emmet Sullivan appealed the decision that had wrongly granted the writ of mandamus and the full Court of Appeals dismissed the Trump appointee’s legally feeble order. They ruled that Flynn had the ordinary appeal of anything Judge Sullivan might do at the hearing that he could argue violated his rights and so was not eligible for a writ of mandamus. The case was returned to Judge Sullivan who ordered a hearing.

Trump lost the election by a shade under 7,000,000 votes. He continues to deny that he lost the election, insisting, without any evidence, that his presidency was stolen by a vast conspiracy of vicious, dangerous, traitorous criminals — some of them in his own party. Bill Barr eventually admitted that the election was over, that there had been no proof of fraud that could have changed the result. Barr will probably be the next to be fired. Trump pardoned Flynn. The same day, Barr made a motion to Judge Sullivan insisting that he now immediately dismiss the case. Sullivan is weighing his option to tell Barr again to go fuck himself.

Pardon in hand, Mike Flynn immediately called for an armed overthrow of the elected government, a full-on military coup. The man Sullivan denounced in court as a traitor to his oath to serve this country was advocating open treason. Many of his military colleagues reacted quickly to denounce his exhortation to violent military overthrow of the legally elected government. You can’t teach sick fucking dogs new tricks, by the looks of it.

In an unrelated case, at least one person is currently on trial for an attempt to buy a presidential pardon through a large campaign contribution. This was revealed the other day by the judge hearing the case. The DOJ had kept this prosecution very quiet, the indictment came down in August.

Knowing it would look bad for Trump’s reelection that people had been indicted for attempting to buy pardons from him, Barr concealed the bribe-for-pardon (quid pro quo) case while highlighting an aggressive, international investigation that would supposedly — in October (surprise!) — prove Mueller’s team was a bunch of lying swine who illegally spied on Mr. Trump and trapped innocent men like General Mike Flynn. Barr also repeatedly carped on TV about massive vote-by-mail fraud as Trump’s new mega-donor Postmaster General was removing and dismantling hundreds of high speed mail sorting machinjoes in Democratic areas and yanking mailboxes off the streets in those same areas.

Justice, justice shall ye seek, yo.

And, totally unrelated to any of that sickening batshit — an instrumental I recorded as a rhythm track for some friends to improvise over. From 2009, Now Before I Go…

Barr Betrays Trump

For perhaps the first time during his tenure as Trump’s gunsel, Bill Barr spoke truthfully the other day. Barr stated the obvious publicly, only three weeks after the election was called for Biden. Trump continues to insist (without evidence, having lost 39 of 40 legal challenges, for lack of evidence) that the election was massively rigged, it was stolen from him. Barr finally said there was no wide spread electoral fraud, no irregularities that would have changed the results of the elections.

This is a complete about face from Barr’s unfounded position prior to the election when he insisted during public appearances that mail-in voting was subject to massive fraud. He offered this baseless Trump-Putin talking point with no proof, outside of his huffy assertion that it was “common sense”. After he stated a simple truth about the recent election, one Trump and millions of his MAGA minions don’t want to hear, he was quickly attacked by loyalists.

Lou Dobbs on FOX:

For the attorney general of the United States to make that statement, he’s either a liar, or a fool, or both. He may be, perhaps, compromised, he may be simply unprincipled or he may be personally distraught or ill.

He is unprincipled, Lou, he may also be compromised. He has been shown over and over to be a liar and he’s probably also distraught and ill. None of this is breaking news. Grow up, Lou, and lay off the MAGA juice. That shit will kill you.

As Trump begins to issue pardons to every criminal who could possibly implicate him in a crime, this clip from Barr’s confirmation hearings has begun circulating again. I love this clip very much:

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont):

Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient’s promise to not incriminate him?

William Pelham Barr:

No, that would be a crime.

Bill got that one right, anyway. If you pardon a co-conspirator as a quid pro quo for his vow to dummy up about the conspiracy, so that nobody can prove your role in the crime in a court of law, well, pardon me, boys, that’s not a legal pardon in the strict and highest sense of the terms — or even in a middling sense.

I am very much looking forward to a law-enforcing Attorney General looking closely at the raft of corrupt, self-dealing pardons the president is beginning to hand out after his historically corrupt, lawless run as president. Biden needs to appoint a strong, principled AG and stand out of the damned way. Democrats almost always disappoint, but the stakes this time, after we’ve come so close to a one-party authoritarian take over of democracy — crap, I’ll kick their asses myself!