TWIB Notes: Kirk, Kimmel and the Kommissars of Speech

This Week in Bullshit - TWIB NOTES

TWIB Notes this week is chock full of hot topics, but the main theme is freedom of speech. So…let’s get to it.

CHARLIE KIRK

Charlie Kirk, the Republican firebrand made famous for his on-site debates with college liberals, was assassinated on September 10, 2025 on the campus of Utah Valley University.

At the time of his killing Kirk was doing his thing…debating in public with less-than-intellectually-stellar liberals enraged by his political philosophy and their inability to navigate his debating style.

As someone who tries to spend as little time on social media as possible Charlie Kirk was not exactly someone I spent much time thinking about prior to his death.

I had seen a bunch of videos of him and he struck me as a talented political matador who would get coddled liberal fools into a frenzy by waving a red cape in front of them and then effortlessly dance around them as they furiously charged at him.

Watching Charlie Kirk get shot in the neck on video was a deeply unsettling thing. Watching many seemingly normal, regular liberal people react to Kirk’s death with unabashed glee was even more unsettling.

Look, I get that people were offended by the things Charlie Kirk said and believed…despite the fact that what he said and believed did not offend me…but what I don’t get is why people would cheer some dude who is not even in power, is not a politician, and controls next to nothing, getting killed in public.

The reaction to Kirk’s death, from lots of regular people and from the media, was disgusting. People cheering his slaughter are not just vile – but deeply sick. Why can’t we just disagree with someone politically and let that be enough? Do we really need to hurt them? To kill them? To spill blood? Good Lord.

The media response was even more ridiculous. I never watch cable news…the last time I did was when Trump was shot in the ear during the campaign, but watching CNN after Kirk’s assassination was a jaw-dropping experience.

The entirety of the coverage I watched on CNN was concern not over political violence and the killing of Kirk, but of the danger of how right-wingers responded. You would’ve thought that right-wingers being pissed that one of their own got gunned down were a major threat to civilization. When you contrast this with the “mostly peaceful protests” coverage of the George Floyd riots then you see how absurd and inane and totally tone-deaf it all is.

As for the actual assassination of Kirk I have a few thoughts…first off…I don’t know what happened…who shot what and from where and for what reason…but I do know this…the official story is, without question, absolute horseshit.

They’ve already come up with a new “magic bullet” theory and have exalted Charlie Kirk into a super-Saint with bones of steel that cannot let bullets pass through them and allowed him to save others while being killed himself…just absurd. The big question is - how does a guy get shot with a high-powered rifle and not have an exit wound? What the fuck is that all about?

Then there’s the indictment, which if you read it is riddled with inaccuracies and fallacies. And then there’s the unbelievable bullshit that is the text exchange from the alleged shooter to his alleged trans lover/roommate that feels like a fabrication from start to finish. And then there’s the “video coverage” where we see the alleged gunman but never with a gun and never in the place he was said to have done the shooting.

The bottom line regarding this assassination is that conspiracy theories will flourish around it (they already have) but they will only obfuscate the truth – which is most likely a very nasty conspiracy all its own.

Whatever comes out of this fucking pathetic and ridiculous FBI in the coming weeks and months, do yourself a favor and don’t believe a word of it.

JIMMY KIMMEL

Back in July I wrote a TWIB Notes column that touched upon the cancellation of the Stephen Colbert Late Night show at CBS and finished my discussion of that topic with the prediction “Colbert is not the last to get the boot…in fact, he’s only the first. Fallon, Meyers and Kimmel are dead men walking…and I have to say that unlike their comedy, that is something that makes me laugh.”

Well, well, well.

Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after saying that right-wingers were doing everything they can to make it seem like Charlie Kirk’s killer wasn’t one of them….or something to that effect.

Kimmel has always been a mystery to me. I never once saw The Man Show, and have never once during its entire 22-year run watched a single episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The few times I’ve seen Kimmel, liked when he hosts an awards show, I have found him to be aggressively unfunny. He is not only devoid of comic ability but he’s also blessed with the charisma of a fly on week old shit.

The left has been more horrified by the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel than they were by the killing of Charlie Kirk…which to be honest is the funniest Jimmy Kimmel related thing to ever happen.

Right-wingers, ever true to their values (wink-wink), are ecstatic over Kimmel’s suspension and hope it is a permanent firing.

The reality is that Kimmel is not, and never has been, a free speech warrior. He, like many liberals, is only interested in his speech being free, and those that disagree with him being silenced.

Right-wingers who were so outraged by woke cancel culture during the Biden years, have spent their first year back in power going full on right-wing woke and cancelling anyone and anything that is even remotely anti-Zionist. By the way…Democrats have not done a single thing to stop the Republican jihad against anti-Zionists, they have in fact, encouraged it.

Kimmel, of course, would never say a bad word about his paymasters so Israel is not a topic he would ever discuss…so there’s a good chance he gets his gig back after a hiatus (his suspension was lifted a few hours after this article was originally published).

But the truth is this…regardless of politics or anything like that, late night talk shows are going away. None of them make money and none of them are worth the cost. All of their ratings are in the toilet and none of them hold any cultural cache anymore.

The other day I happened to watch an old clip of Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal having a half hour long cat fight on The Dick Cavett show some fifty-odd years ago.

The level of intellect, eloquence and the depth of that discussion was staggering compared to the toxically empty calories currently being fed to the public on cable news and late-night talk shows. Seeing American intellectuals like Vidal and Mailer go at each other was invigorating and depressing…invigorating because they were such sharp minds, and depressing because not only do we not have those types of debates anymore – we don’t even have intellectuals anymore.

Ultimately, whether Kimmel stays or goes is utterly irrelevant….which brings us to…

THE KOMMISSARS OF SPEECH

What makes the Kimmel case so interesting is that the allegation is that the government, at the behest of Trump himself, pressured ABC to suspend/cancel Kimmel. That action is, obviously, in direct violation of the First Amendment which guarantees the right to freedom of speech – and is remarkably similar to what the Biden administration did with social media companies in trying to silence dissent and debate over Covid policies and vaccines. Hmmmm.

But here’s the rub in the free speech debate…the debate over free speech is long over and free speech has most certainly lost.

For years we have been reduced to free speech debates in this country amounting to little more than “free speech for me but not for thee!”. So we get liberals wanting to cancel people who say things they don’t like, or in the case of Covid – people who don’t get vaccinated, and then we get right-wingers (notice I don’t call them conservatives because they conserve nothing but their own hypocrisy) doing the exact same thing – trying to ban flag burning, anti-Zionism, protests etc.

The truth is that freedom of speech was killed long ago. This past year we had a big furor because Trump was pissed at 60 Minutes and Paramount caved to the pressure in order to get a merger approved. But since we are so historically illiterate in this country no one seemed to remember this drama played out before with very similar results…back in the 1990’s when 60 Minutes refused to air a story that was highly critical of Big Tobacco for fear of lawsuits and loss of ad revenue. They made an excellent movie about that incident called The Insider…you should go watch it if you’ve never seen it – Michael Mann directed it and it stars Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

60 Minutes has, for the last quarter century at least, but nothing but an intel community and military industrial complex mouthpiece that spews the most vacant and vapid of propaganda imaginable…it has been co-opted and is now a nefarious and insidious media machine that routinely deceives and divides.

Remember when the liberal New York Times were used as a propaganda weapon by the Bush administration in deceiving the populace regarding the threat from Iraq? I do.

I also remember when the liberal New York Times held a story about the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance of Americans for over a year until after Bush’s re-election. I also remember when the liberal New York Times refused to use the word torture and instead used the word “enhanced interrogation” at the behest of the Bush administration. I remember those things…but I am apparently in the minority.

Back in my day liberals dedicated to the value of free speech were rightly horrified when Big Tobacco silenced 60 Minutes, and when the Bush administration set-up “free speech zones” for protestors…the name of which more than implies that there are places in America where free speech is not allowed, and used Judith Miller as a pro-war propagandist.

But many of these same liberals were as silent as the grave while Saint Obama used the Espionage Act more times than every other president combined to prosecute whistleblowers and reporters.

These same liberals stayed silent when, under Obama, Edward Snowden was forced from his country after revealing the illegal surveillance state we all lived under. And were just as silent when, under Obama and Biden, Julian Assange was imprisoned for the crime of revealing the war crimes of the American government.

Freedom of speech was long a lynchpin of the liberal movement, but because many liberals who love freedom of speech stayed silent when Obama gutted our right to it, they then were conditioned to more easily sell out their values and ideals regarding speech in favor of genuflecting to the woke mob when it rose to prominence. Quickly over the span of less than a decade - freedom of speech was gone and in its place was the banner of being against “hate speech” – literally and figuratively. Liberal disdain for freedom of speech disintegrated so quickly and thoroughly that even the ACLU has disavowed it in purpose and practice.  

“Hate speech” (which is ironic considering it can be interpreted as meaning to hate – speech) became the favorite talking point of liberals everywhere…and I warned that labelling things hate speech, and wanting to ban hate speech, would lead to the destruction of free speech – but liberals didn’t care that they, as I told them, would eventually be hoisted on their own petard…or as I called it – foisted on their own retard!

Right-wingers have long made no bones about their desire to curb freedom of speech, but then freaked out when woke liberals wanted to curb right-wing speech.

And so, the cycle will continue on and on forever until some douchebag centrist (maybe Pete Buttigieg!!) comes along and Obama-style makes a compromise that in order to clamp down on hate speech and political violence we will do away with freedom of speech altogether. It’ll be just like the healthcare debate where a public option is never discussed and the big business republican option is the only option – thanks Obama!

To tie this up in a very messy bow, woke liberals have made the argument that hate speech is violence, and when speech is violence then it is logical to use actual physical violence to silence it…and thus we get Charlie Kirk not just being murdered, but his killing being celebrated.

I have long written on this subject (and will link some of those articles below), most notably about the argument from liberals in the wake of Trump’s first election about the efficacy of “punching Nazis”. Of course, the problems with punching Nazis are numerous…like who gets to decide who is a Nazi? And what if someone decides you’re a Nazi? And are Nazi’s allowed to defend themselves…and more so…can Nazi’s – like liberals punching – proactively defend themselves? And finally…punching people you label Nazis will only escalate into ultimately shooting people you label Nazis – people like Charlie Kirk.

Speech is not and never will be violence…violence is violence…and the only people who claim speech is violence are the ones who haven’t been punched in the face.

The bottom line is this, current free speech debate is a farce because both the left and the right have long ago sold out their ideals regarding speech and instead have used their power to silence their enemies.

The war for freedom of speech, and frankly the war for any of our “freedoms” is long over…and we all lost. The aristocratic oligarchy and intelligence and military industrial complex and globalist corporatocracy have won and now keep us as slaves in what is essentially an open-air surveillance state prison.

So fuck Jimmy Kimmel, and fuck 60 Minutes, and fuck the mainstream media and fuck social media and fuck our politicians and fuck the myopic fools who bought into the two-party system and all of its homicidal lies.

And fuck all of us while we’re at it…because we are just as much to blame for this disaster as anybody.

Charlie Kirk is dead and Jimmy Kimmel is out of a job…and the cold hard reality is that there are going to be many more who face a similar fate….and don’t kid yourself…there’s nothing we can do about it.

Links-

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

Caesar Americanus

The Tragedy of Charlottesville

Punching Nazis

©2025

Election 2016 : Random Dispatches From the Shitshow

ESTIMATED READING TIME: 8 MINUTES 19 SECONDS

This election has broken my already diseased brain. So, instead of writing a coherent and intelligible article about it, I decided to go through my notes and write an incoherent and rambling post about it. I think these seemingly random ravings perfectly capture the madness that is the 2016 election. Enjoy!!

DISPATCH 666: MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

On Tuesday, November 8th, 2016, the U.S. Presidential election will come to a merciful end (hopefully!!). In a country of over 320 million people, Americans are forced to choose between the repulsive Donald Trump and the repugnant Hillary Clinton. This is how low we have sunk as a nation, may God help us all.

It is difficult to wrap your head around how the alleged "Greatest Nation on Earth™" found two such odious people to run for the highest office in the land. If Nixon and Nero had a baby and its wet nurse was George W. Bush, that baby would be Donald Trump. If Nixon and Margaret Thatcher had a child that had Dick Cheney for a nanny, that child would be Hillary Clinton.

In my opinion, voting for Donald Trump is an irrational act born out of emotion, that emotion being anger. Voting for Hillary Clinton is an act of insanity, if you define insanity as doing the same thing over and over agin and expecting a different result. Either way, whether you are acting irrationally out of anger, or acting insane out of fear, you are making a really terrible decision. But that is what America has become, we only act out of emotion…be it fear or anger. This is who we are, an anti-intellectual, frightened and impotent nation of cowards. We can bitch about it all we want, but we have gotten the nominees we deserve.

The funny thing to me are the people who support either candidate so vociferously. To think that there is any difference between them is absurd. We do not get to choose between different ideologies in American elections, who only get to choose between different faces upon the same ideology. There are not two opposing parties in America, only one party that wears different colored jerseys for some occasional intramural scrimmages, usually revolving around abortion or guns, with the result always being a draw where nothing changes. No matter who is elected we will get a corporatist who worships Wall Street and a neo-con who fellates the military-intellegence-law enforcement-industrial complex. The only choice we are given is between different sides of the same coin. Whether Trump or Clinton is elected we will have another war, we will have more intrusive surveillance, we will have more economic instability and we will be forced to bail out more "too big to fail" institutions, and we will have more downward pressure on wages and more squeezing of working and middle class Americans. In other words, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. 

To see the mental gymnastics people put themselves through in order to support or oppose a candidate for reasons that are beyond their conscious, rational minds is pretty funny. So many Republicans absolutely hate Hillary Clinton…and yet you can never actually pin them down on the exact positions she holds that they hate, it is entirely personality based. She is a war-monger and a corporatist…a big supporter of the Iraq war and Wall Street banks, which are two things the Republicans celebrate, and yet Hillary is despised by them because of her "corruption" or her pantsuits or her shrill voice. Republicans, and many other Americans, have an emotional and visceral hatred of Hillary that is irrational and not based on her positions or policies. Me on the other hand, I hate her for her positions and policies, but thankfully I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. 

The same can be said of Trump as well since he will do in office exactly what Hillary will do. Many Democrats hate Trump for his style, not his substance, the same for Republicans and Hillary. Many people hate Trump because he is a loud mouthed braggart and a braggadocios buffoon. In America, whether we want to admit it or not or acknowledge it or not, we choose our presidents based solely on personality, look at Republicans and their hatred of Obama, as it was with Democrats and Bush. Next to nothing was different between Obama and Bush except for their personality and style. Democrats just don't like Trump as a person, and Republicans just don't like Hillary as a person. It is immaterial as they are both going to serve you the same steaming shit sandwich and we are all gonna have to take a big bite.

DISPATCH 327: AMERICAN IDOL-ATRY

At some point over the long, hot summer, I watched on tv as President Obama gave a speech to a raucous Democratic party crowd in some battleground state, where he said, in a not-so-veiled shot at Donald Trump, that the Presidential election "wasn't a reality show." Oh Obama, you silly little man, you couldn't be more wrong. This election is nothing but a reality show from start to finish. This is what happens when you have a dumbed down, uninformed, ill-informed or mis-informed, emotionally driven populace…you get the shit show that is election 2016. Speaking of shitshows…what follows are some of my observations and thoughts on this Presidential reality show that I lovingly call American Idolatry.

DISPATCH 47: AND THE WINNER IS….

I have thought all year that Donald Trump is going to win the election. I have been and probably still am in the minority on this thought, but as my readers know, I am used to being out on my own. I am not an expert on polls, so why do I think Trump will win? Because this is the time we live in. History has an ebb and flow to it with multiple actions and reactions shaping the course of events. The time we live in now is the time of the backlash against what is left of the establishment. You can see it across the globe, most noticeably in this years Brexit vote, but also in the recent Iceland elections, and in recent years with the rise of nationalist and independence parties of both the left and the right across Europe from Ireland (Sinn Fein) to France (Nationalist Front) to Britain (UKIP) to Scotland (SNP) to Spain (Catalans). For good or for ill, the establishment is crumbling and people want to throw off the yoke of globalism and internationalism and return to their nationalist roots. And so it is in the U.S. Since we don't have a parliamentary system, the route for these nationalist and independence parties is limited, but they have still taken hold of the collective unconscious (and conscious) to throw a monkey wrench into the "business as usual" plans of the establishment. This is why I thought it was such a tremendous error by the Democrats to select Hillary Clinton to be the nominee. She is the antithesis of this pushback against the establishment. She IS the establishment. Bernie Sanders, with his passionate populism, would've trounced Trump, cutting him off at his populist knees, but instead we will see Trump beat Clinton. The torches and pitchforks are out folks, and the Frankenstein's monster that is the political establishment is going to be attacked by the angry villagers. Moronically, the Democrats nominated the ultimate Frankenstein's monster in Hillary, and the Republicans got a con-man who sells pitchforks to rile up the locals. This is also why Trump is immune from the barrage of "attacks" on him by the media as the media are part of the establishment and the angry villagers justifiably hate them as much as they hate the rest of the establishment. So whenever the media "attacks" Trump whether it be by stating facts or with scandal, Trump only gets stronger, whereas Clinton is tied in knots over every single scandal and troubling story that gets thrown at her. 

Context is everything when evaluating the waves of history. Think of it this way, Obama never would have become President if it weren't for the disaster of 8 years of the George W. Bush administration preceding him. Obama was the polar opposite STYLISTICALLY of Bush, and style is the most important factor now in elections. People don't understand or care about the nuance of positions and policy, they just understand that they are casting the person they will have to see on tv almost everyday for the next 4 to 8 years…that is why the election is a reality tv show. So W. the rube was elected as a reaction to Bill Clinton (Slick Willie) the calculated politician. Then Obama, who was perceived as thoughtful and articulate is selected to replace W. who was perceived to be instinctively acting from his gut and a verbal stumbler. In keeping with this casting theme, Trump is the polar opposite of Obama, whereas Hillary Clinton is just a far inferior version of Obama, that is why the historical wave favors Trump.

When you add together the wave of nationalism and independence and anti-establishment sentiment sweeping the globe with the context of the reality tv casting couch, you get a President Trump. Trump is seen as going from his gut just like W. which is opposite of Obama, and when people think to themselves that he may not know what the hell he is talking about, they will calm themselves by saying that he will "surround himself with the best advisers", just like they told themselves with W. when they got cold feet because of how stupid he seemed. Of course, that worked out really well the last time and I am sure it'll go just as swimmingly this time around.

And just to be perfectly clear, just because I think Trump will win, doesn't mean I want Trump to win. And just because I don't want Trump to win doesn't mean I want Hillary to win, I sure as hell don't. What I want is for both of them to be stuck in an elevator together that is filled with raw sewage, then catches on fire, then explodes and is propelled into deep space, never to be seen or heard from again. That is my dream…this election is my nightmare. 

DISPATCH 411: THE UN-AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Contrary to popular belief, it doesn't matter who you vote for, you are going to get the same thing no matter what.  Remember Obama's "Hope and Change" ? He sold a lot of hope, but not much changed. Why do I say that? Well…here is one piece of evidence…the Affordable Care Act…which is neither affordable nor does it provide care. Before the Affordable Care Act came to be, when Obama was rallying support to do something about health care, I knew that we the people would get royally screwed. And surprise, surprise, that is exactly what happened. Obama turned the creation of the health care bill over to…insurance companies. I find it is always a wise move to turn the solving of a problem over to the creators of the problem…in case you weren't sure I am being sarcastic. Now, you have a lot of liberals who defend Obamacare tooth and nail, this always makes me chuckle. The only reason they defend it is because it has Obama's name in it. The plan is a Republican plan, it is a corporatist plan. Liberals also tell me that Obama actually wanted a "government option" or a "single payer" plan but that he knew it would never pass. Of course, this is psychological projection as Obama never fought once to get a public option or single payer. Obama turned health care reform over to health insurers just like he turned Wall Street reform over to Wall Street, and it turned out going just as well for regular Americans. 

I am a healthy man in my forties. I have never been to the doctor for any other reason than to get a yearly check up. Never. I am healthy as a horse. I bought "catastrophic" health insurance the year before Obamacare came online just to make sure my family would be ok in case I got hit by a bus. That insurance cost me $107/month, with a deductible of $5,000 and an out-of pocket max of $8,000. That worked well for me as I never had any need to go to the doctor that whole year and, thankfully, I wasn't hit by a bus. Then Obamacare rolled into town, and don't you know it, my monthly rate jumped to $253/month. That is a jump of over 150%. Sweet!! The kicker is that my rate jumped astronomically for a plan that gave me worse health care coverage, with my deductible rising to $8,000 and my out-of pocket max going to $12,000. See this is what happens when the government forces you to buy an industry's product…that industry gauges the hell out of people because they can.

Things didn't exactly get better for me with Obamacare as the years rolled by, after my first year with this plan, the cheapest I could get by the way, my rates jumped again to $289/month. This was especially awesome because I never once used my insurance except for my yearly check up, which told me I was in great physical condition and completely healthy.

Things took a turn for the better the next year when my plan got slightly less expensive, which was a relief. My plan dropped down to $268/month..a savings of a whopping $21!!! This is how you condition people to eat shit, you raise their rates by $182/month over a few years and then a you cut prices by $21/a month and tout it as the plan working to save people money. Thanks Obama.

The kicker came just last month when I got a notice from my insurer that my rate would be going up from $268/month to $354/month in 2017. That is over a 300% increase from my original pre-Affordable Care Act of $107/month. Good times. So I am now forced to purchase this product, which is for no other reason than catastrophic coverage and which I have never used except for a yearly check up, for $4,200 a year. If I don't purchase it I will have to pay the penalty tax, so either I pay the money and get the plan or I pay the money and get no plan. I get no subsidies because I am eligible for my wife's health care plan through her work, but that plan would cost each of us $500/month. 

So here I am, a working-class man, who is busting his back by running three of my own small businesses where I am the only employee. I am hustling my ass off just to barely keep my head above water and now I am forced to purchase a shitty health care plan that does nothing for me that eats away at my already very narrow margins. I am not alone, and this is why Donald Trump, as loathsome as he is, and he is extremely loathsome, and as much of a charlatan as he is, and he is a yuuuuge charlatan, has garnered traction in this election with "regular" folks. Of course, the reality is that he will do nothing to fix the health care debacle and will only make things worse, but at least he isn't saying the Affordable Care Act is working. It isn't, and I am proof of that.

Speaking of health care, this past year my father, a true blue conservative, died after a brief illness. As sad as he was to be shuffling off this mortal coil, there was a part of him that was greatly relieved to sneak away without having to suffer through this nightmare of an election. My father had always been very interested in politics and was well read and followed the news religiously. Even though he was proudly registered as an independent, in the entire fifty years he was eligible to vote he had only voted for Republicans. My father is an interesting litmus test for this election, as he, like many Republican men of his generation, loathed Hillary Clinton. Interestingly enough, he also loathed Donald Trump with the power of a thousand suns. My father was a native New Yorker, so he knew of Trump's father Fred and had watched from the very beginning as his obnoxious spawn, The Donald, rose to prominence. My father thought Trump was "full of shit" and was a "self-serving asshole" and "scumbag". When I asked my father who he would vote for this year he said he might write in Paul Ryan or someone else like that as a protest, but he also said he was seriously considering moving out of the country. I laughed when he said that…he didn't laugh…because he was deadly serious. This election made my father despair, and while we didn't agree on much, I agreed with him in that.

Oddly enough, or not, my father, the deeply conservative, life-long Republican voting man, hated Obamacare as much as I did. And oddly enough considering his political disposition, he agreed with me on the only way to solve the problem…single payer health care. I can't emphasize how extraordinary this revelation is, that my father, whose hatred of government and bureaucracy knew no bounds, actually thought the only rational and fair way to make health care work in America was to have a single payer plan. I agree with him. I understand the arguments against it, as did he, but we are at the point where we have no other viable options. The fact that two people of such disparate views like my father and I both agreed on this and yet it is a total non-starter in the public debate, is damning evidence to the disconnect between Washington and Main Street.

As much as I am sure my father wishes he were alive today, in some ways I'm sure he is glad he didn't have to live to see the vacuous and repugnant Donald Trump become President of the country he held so dear. Sadly, the rest of us will have to bear witness to the clusterfuck that will be the Trump administration. And if I am wrong and Clinton wins, don't kid yourself, we are still in for one hell of a gigantic shitshow.

DISPATCH 911: DEATH RATTLE OF AN EMPIRE

Just as my father's body deteriorated and failed him, so it goes with America. This election is the death rattle of the American empire. Nominating Trump and Hillary is a sign of a nation mired deep in a self-destructive decadence that will destroy what is left of its power and prestige. The decay at the heart of America and American life has corroded the institutions that held up the nation. Those institutions are crumbling and the future of America is dying on the vine. There will be those that will tell you that this election is merely the end of the beginning of the fall of America, it isn't, this is the isn't even the beginning of the end of the fall of America, this is the death rattle of the rabid, diseased-ridden beast of American empire that flails about gasping for its final breath.

DISPATCH 69: WHO'S THE BOSS?

The other day I emailed a friend of mine, a well regarded financial writer who I call Red Dragon. I emailed Dragon an article form the LA Times which was about the working class people of Youngstown, Ohio who Bruce Springsteen has often written about in his songs. The article showed that these left behind blue collar workers of Youngstown are Trump's base, which is ironic since Bruce Springsteen is such a strong supporter of the Democratic party. It is an interesting article which you should check out here. 

Red Dragon's response was thus, " The frustration of these people, and millions more like them around the country, is understandable and palpable. However, that has led them to a state of delusion, in which they think an aristocratic, billionaire, plutocrat actually cares about them and their problems, and that he alone can “make American great again.” It reminds me of the 'hope and change' that so many Americans fell for in 2008. It’s all so transparent that it’s hard to believe that they fall for it. Desperation causes delusion, I guess." Red Dragon is a smart guy, and as usual he was spot on in his analysis. I could not agree more.

I had a conversation with another friend of mine, a successful radio and tv host who I will call Johnny Steamroller. When I asked Johnny what he thought of this election he said, "Hillary Clinton is what is wrong with American politics, and Donald Trump is what is wrong with America." It is good to have smart friends. Steamroller and Red Dragon are always insightful guys. I would describe Steamroller as a center-right conservative and Red Dragon as a center-left liberal. Their political views may at times be at odds, but one thing they agree on, they do not want to vote for either Trump or Clinton. Whether they do or do not only they know for sure, but I think they are not alone in their reticence to vote for either candidate.

Even though I live in Los Angeles, a liberal bastion, I have many friends across the political spectrum who live in different states across the country. Here is some anecdotal evidence about the election that I have observed, take them for what they are worth.

1. I have not spoken to a single person among my many conservative friends across the country, who said they would vote for Trump. Not one. That doesn't mean they won't vote for Trump, just that they wouldn't tell me they would.  

2. Of all the women in the same age bracket as Hillary Clinton who I have spoken to about the election, none of them like her and none of them would vote for her. In fact, all of the baby boomer woman I have spoken with, from the far right, to the right to the center to the left to the far left, absolutely despise Hillary Clinton. They have a visceral, deep-seated dislike of her. None of them said they were going to vote for her.

3. Being in Los Angeles I do know of a lot of people who will vote for Hillary, some even enthusiastically, but all of them are women under 45. I know of no man who is excited to vote for Hillary. The majority of women I know who are voting for her are voting for her just because she is a woman. In my opinion, if you want to vote for a woman, vote for Dr. Jill Stein, at least she is an honest and decent person you can trust and can be proud to have supported.

Speaking of excited…whenever I see either Trump or Clinton or their surrogates give a speech to a crowd on the campaign trail, I always wonder, who the fuck goes to a campaign event? Think about it, these people have to take time out of their day, and maybe take the day off from work, to drive to some event, find parking, wait in line, then stand waiting for the candidate to arrive, and then after the nonsensical speech they wait in line to leave, then sit in traffic, then drive home. There whole day is shot just to be in the same room while one of these asshats gives a vapid and vacuous speech about absolutely nothing. Who are these dipshits and assholes standing behind the candidate as they give the same canned, manufactured speech over and over again? I am sure these people think they are being civically and politically engaged…but they aren't. They are nothing but props on a reality tv show. They are not only dupes, but they are proud of being dupes. These people are the living, breathing, walking definition of "useful idiots." It doesn't matter the candidate, if you go to a rally or a speech of either one of these people, you are part of the problem, and you will get the shit sandwich you deserve.

DISPATCH 007: DIAGNOSIS AND CONCLUSION

A brief look into Donald Trump's history reveals a great deal about the "man", and I use that term very lightly. Trump is a charlatan, a silver-spooned, mealy-mouthed, spoiled brat of a douchebag who has never worked a day in his life. He is also a failure, an utter loser who has only managed to promote his family name, but never has been able to succeed in business or anything else. He is a punchline and a, pardon the language, "pussy". 

Trump is symptomatic of the disease that ravages America. His spiritual life consists of following Norman Vincent Peale, the power of positive thinking guy. Trump worships greed and self-delusion, which is right in line with the prosperity gospel and its new age counter part, The Secret. This selfish and myopic approach to life is not only morally and ethically untenable, it is politically and economically cancerous. This cancer has eaten away at our society and culture. It infects everything it touches, be it government, business, religion, family or society. Trump being President will be like treating terminal brain cancer with a cyanide tablet.

Hillary Clinton is a corrupt, manipulative and manufactured politician who has risen to power through nepotism. She should be everything liberals and Democrats rail against, and yet she is held up by them as someone to admire. The stench of the Clinton's and how they have conned the Democrats and liberals into selling their soul is repulsive. Clinton being President will be like treating terminal brain cancer with even more brain cancer.

Do I sound pessimistic? Trust me, I am not a pessimist, I am a realist. And history, and my eyes and ears tell me that we are in for a very bad stretch no matter who gets elected. The only thing you can hope for is that something better, something more local, something more sustainable, something more generous and thoughtful, rises from the ash heap of the American empire. Clinton or Trump? It doesn't matter. And if some bumper sticker sloganeer chastises you and tells you this is the most important election ever, tell them to stop moving deck chairs, put down the violin, and either make a run for a lifeboat or sit back and enjoy the up close view of history as the Titanic goes down and sucks us all down with it. It doesn't matter who we vote for on November 8th…the Iceberg is going to win. And it is going to be a landslide. 

What am I going to do? I am going to take the advice of the great, leather-clad American poet and prophet Jim Morrison…I am going to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames. You in?

EMBRACE THE INEVITABLE!!!

VOTE ICEBERG/GODZILLA 2016!!

© 2016