PREPOSTEROUS

THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: Ask not for whom the bell tolls . . . .

I was trying to think of a word or two that would describe the situation were are faced with in this country when I realized that what has been going on is not amenable to words. This may be because the idea is just that: an idea, and ideas have more or less been abandoned by a considerable percentage of the United States electorate. They seem to have been replaced by a notion of fidelity to insanity and the example of a madman as a father figure. You could get one of these aledged humans alone and ask about the situation and they may suddenly realize that they are actually behaving like obedient beasts, but once in public they will return to daddy.

I had considered, however briefly, changing the name of this publication to the PREPOSTEROUS TIMES, but, to quote another ex-President, "that would be wrong". I will give a few examples of how strange things are, these examples led to a sudden epiphany over the weekend. Actually, perhaps one will suffice. I'll decide that after I go through the labor of typing it up.

One of the strangest phenomenon is a social medium platform called Twitter. At one time it was a very handy was to keep current with some news topics and a ready source of amusement. However, the ex-President used it relentlessly, whether aware or not that what he said was government (the people's) property and official documents. After his pronouncements led to acts of violence, whether individual or collective, the company removed his account. There was a bit of a fuss over that with complaints of suppressing freedom of speech, but eventually even the most idiotic of his minions got the idea that the first Amendment did not apply to private industries.

Well, a fairly strange billionaire, strange even by billionaire standards, bought the "platform" for 40 billion dollars saying he was restoring freedom of speech. As soon as he bought it, it was valued at ½ its purchase price. Now it is down to a third. One can speculate that the promise of returning Donald Trump to the platform would draw users and thus increase revenues, but he did not understand the daddy issues Donald had. You see, he had started his own platform called "truth social" (it really is not that funny, but ok) and to return to Twitter would be to admit failure, something he has never done, at least in public.

Well, I did not use it a great deal, but did find it useful at times. (I just was told, second hand, that Donald did not rule out a plea deal "if they pay enough in damages"). Anyway, back to the paragraph. I was amazed at the hatred I saw for MSNBC. Really, it is part of what is probably the largest and most capitalized corporation, at least in the media business – hardly working to turn this country "Communist" or "Marxist". However, since Donald complained that "they" were moving this country towards that, it is probably worth while to learn what they are.

When the orange one uses those terms, it seems he is talking about "Stalinism" which is a handy word for authoritarian or tyrannical. Communism, on the other hand, which means a complete sharing of wealth ending in no needed state at all, more or less everyone owning everything in COMMON. That, at least, is how Marx saw it, but he was anticipated by an American writer, Henry David Thoreau.

Now, Thoreau wrote the first clear essay on the subject of Civil Disobedience and also wrote one extolling the actions of John Brown, tha abolitionism that did take up arms against the government (at Harper's Ferry, although the government seems to have instituted that one – it's not that clear). The essay "Civil Disobedience" served as the basis for Ghandi and Martin Luther King, although that is seldom mentioned. In addition, once Henry was let out of jail, he continued on his way to hunt huckleberries while the others bothered themselves with political action. The essay contains a sentence somewhere that says he prefers a government best that governs least and, when men are ready for it, the government is best is which governs not at all. No, that's not anarchy, but it is a topic for another day.)

I am a bit intrigued by the concept of Trump throwing all those who have been loyal to him "under the bus". Who is driving that bus? Is that topic off the table? If it is, where is that damn table everyone keeps talking about? Well, I'm just getting a short attention span from this guy and his muddled minions.

Now, the indictment is 49 pages long. It is easy to read, very clear, authoritative, and damning – and this is just the documents! The January 6^th rabble rumpus is not even mentioned. That is among the coming attractions.

An ex-Trump attorney (there are a lot of them) was talking about "Prosecutorial Misconduct" concerning the grand jury, and it sounded impressive. However, that was pressed at the time and rejected. They appealed it, and the appeal was appealed. They then appealed the appeal, and that appeal failed, thus the appeal of the appeal was rejected soundly and this was done some time ago which makes the statement, to use a legal term, "bullshit". However, it did sound convincing.

Well, we could go on for some time, but it is simply a waste of time. Donald just will not realize, or at least will not admit, that he lost the election, he is no longer President, and he never will be again.

Is there any possible reason, other than that, why he kept the boxes? Oh yes, but everything is circumstantial. For example, Saudi Arabia would like to know more about Iran's nuclear capacity, especially since he abandoned the treaty we had with them, the one negotiated with Kerry. When the election was over, Jerrod, his son in law, was given three trillion dollars by the prince. Well, what of it? Circumstantial, yeah, that's right.

That doesn't matter. I understand, however, that much does matter about these documents. For example, there is information in them that could prove harmful to "our" troops overseas and we have a lot of them. In fact, we have military bases overseas at least in double digits, but I can't remember how many. I can remember that China has one. Our "defense" budget is larger than the next 8 combined, I mean 10, no, now I'm told more than all the other countries combined, including Malta.

Now where are they? Well, one that seems a bit strange in Syria. Why the hell do we have military bases stil in Syria? We hear about Russwian bases, or a base, in Syria, but they were invited. This Assad guy really grew up in England hoping to be an eye-doctor, but ended up running the country. There was a phenomenon called the "Arab spring," which today sounds like a soap commercial, that we used to invade Syria. Syria doesn't want us there, but Israel does. It is a way, we are told, for Iran to supply guys in Lebanon who doesn't like Israel. Well, who does? I now, lots of people who are afraid not to. The Holocaust and all that, don't you know.

Ah, it seems we are out of Afghanistan now. We got there to get Bin Laden who thought up how to hit the twin towers in New York (which was a stunt to make a building to what was originaly the Sears Tower in Chicago – if you don't believe that, check out the powerful WLS radio station at890 there. The WLS stands for the Worlds Largest Store, which no longer exists). Well, that destruction was quite a mess and Rudy Giuliani made himself a hero over that. Small world, no?

Well, we actually started the invasion of Afghanistan with Bin Laden who became part of the "green revolution" because we believed in a God and the Soviets didn't. (You figure that one out yourself.)

So, after the buildings were knocked down, we went after him, but Afghanistan would not export him (something about lack of evidence) so we invaded. A professional football player enlisted, giving up his million dollar a year contract, was sent there, and promptly was shot in the back by his fellow soldiers. Well, Brezhnev (who had tried to run that country for awhile and people were well-off for awhile) warned up that it was a mess, but we were better than that. So we invaded.

But Georgie, with his own Oedipus complex, wanted to invade Iraq (after Iraq obliged us by attacking Iran) and so he pointed out that Saddam and Bin Laden were buddies. Actually, Bin Laden had said some very unkind things about Saddam, implying he would rot in hell, so to speak, but that didn't matter. We invaded. Oh, yeah, we still have troops there so that's another secret document issue at Mar a Lago.

There was a refugee problem in Europe, but that started after Hillary and France attacked Gaddafi. Hillary said, rather disgustingly, "I came, I saw, he died." Well, come on, that's pretty silly and bitchy. It is no "Veni, Vidi, Vici". Now there is still a mess there. The, pardon the expression, Republicans held hearings into Hillary about BinGhazi, but only about 4 secret service people. A better investigation would be why the hell we were there in the first place.

So, what was that all about? Well, it's just some stuff that the Orange man had in his toilet room and other places in Florida. He was indicted under the Espionage act, not the records act. There are over 3 dozen felony charges.

He already has a place in History: he is the only President to be elected once, impeached twice, indicted twice, and arrested twice. I don't think that record will be beaten, whatever happens next.

Well, I'm getting tired of this stuff. Next time, I'll try to focus on sanity again. Make Sanity Great Again! (There I go, immediately!) Have a good time before it's too late.