Pope Francis has delivered another criticism of some members of his own church, suggesting it was better to be an atheist than one of many Catholics who he said lead a hypocritical double life.
In improvised comments in the sermon of his private morning mass in his residence, he said: “It is a scandal to say one thing and do another. That is a double life.
“There are those who say, ‘I am very Catholic, I always go to mass, I belong to this and that association’,” the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.
He said some of these people should also say “‘my life is not Christian, I don’t pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, [I lead] a double life’.”
“There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal,” he said. “How many times have we all heard people say ‘if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist’.”
In his often impromptu sermons, he has condemned sexual abuse of children by priests as being tantamount to a “satanic mass”, said Catholics in the mafia excommunicate themselves, and told his own cardinals to not act “as if they were princes”.
Pope Francis called out Christians in a sermon Thursday, suggesting it would be better to be an atheist than to lead a double life, exploit people or manage a greedy business.
“So many Christians are like this, and these people scandalize others,” Francis said during morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, CNN reported, quoting Vatican Radio. “How many times have we heard — all of us, around the neighborhood and elsewhere — ‘But to be a Catholic like that, it’s better to be an atheist.’ It is that: scandal.”
“But what is scandal? Scandal is saying one thing and doing another.”
Francis’ sermon was an extension of Thursday’s Mass readings, which include a passage from the Gospel of Mark. In it, Jesus says it is better to be drowned than to cause others to sin.
Drawing on that passage, Francis gave a blunt example.
He said he imagined a wealthy Christian knocking at the gates of heaven and saying, “Here I am, Lord! … I went to Church, I was close to you, I belong to this association, I did this … Don’t you remember all the offerings I made?”
To which Jesus may reply, according to Francis:
“Yes, I remember. The offerings, I remember them: All dirty. All stolen from the poor. I don’t know you.’ That will be Jesus’ response to these scandalous people who live a double life.”
It is not the first time Francis has referenced atheists. In 2013, he said that heaven is open, potentially, to all people.
“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone,” he said. “‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!”
This, in my opinion, biased being an atheist myself, may be the biggest civil rights speech of this young century. And for as long as I got on this imperiled planet, I and other non-believers in heaven and deities and believers of other faiths and catholics also owe this man infinite gratitude for his wide ranging acceptance and tolerance.
This recognition of the rancid exploiters of the catholic faith and various other religions of those who believe, especially the vulnerable and desperate should make those perpetrators sleep a little harder at night.
Like the gangsters the Pope mentioned, exploiting the catholic faith to cover for their murders, larceny and intimidation in the old country and metropolitan areas in this nation. Especially watching them mulling around the locales of Queens in my formative years, and documented in one of greatest movies of all time
Like the ministers abusing their positions manipulating the public to prop up their favorite politicians, despite their dubious popularity.
Like those priests entrusted by parents with their children, in the dim hopes of instilling them with hopeful beliefs but instead were victims of their repressed feral carnal desires.
Like false freedom fighters imposing their extremist doctrines on their own people with threats of execution amidst living under a dictator.
Like all those elected to serve by the Potamic Swamp in the exalted halls and rooms in the Congress and Senate, concocting new orthodoxies and cutting basic individual freedoms in damaging bills being written and laws being rewritten in the name of God and Country.
And last but not least, for which this is certainly what the Pope was referring to, and being the insecure megalomaniac he is, the President of the United States, Donald Trump. Who literally had to double down on the optics to show his alleged devotion to his catholic upbringing to mollify the faithful that voted for him.
And who since then has lied and lied and broken every promise to those who thought he would drain the swamp of officials and the billionaire donor class ripping off the government for decades. And is using his position to sow expensive chaos with his current blanket immigration policy, which as Obama proved previously, was doing just fine.
Pope Francis is a very astute man. It’s going to be very interesting to see how Don Worthless is going to respond on social media to this subtle yet apt slight on his character and his faith-based ruse.
As for all atheists out there, Francis is reassuring us that there is an afterlife out there besides dirt in the ground. Which shows that he’s in touch and respects our convictions, but he will not stop trying to get us to believe, yet without imposition or guilt. And that makes him a living icon, and we haven’t had many of those in a while, and you should actually thank God for a moment that he’s here for us.
Milo Yiannopoulos. And what happened to the spare glasses Edward Snowden forgot.
I don’t know much about this guy. But the shit-talkers and renegades that are now the establishment of conservative republicans sure do. Certainly Figurehead Trump’s plutocabinet. Definitely chief strategist, former editor of Brietbart media and director of shock doctrine national bedlam and the war on Americans and those who want to be Americans, Steve Bannon does. Since he hired him for his tech expertise, which shows it was less IT and more comment trolling on the loo in his jammies and pearls.
Now they have no use for him anymore. But he was a very good token fag gay and useful idiot for their cause, and Milo was a staunch, loyal advocate for the Trump campaign. Bannon gave him an outlet generating outrageous headlines to choppy essays, rigidly staying to the format hybrid of racially volatile provocations masked as supposed conservative thought peppered with vulgarities in language and beliefs and alternative facts, and wound up finding good fortune and accolades that can only come in the culturally, intellectually and talent bereft zeitgeist influenced by the social media.
His fleeting and now cliche 15:00 of fame from print and TV got started by a lot of misplaced hatred and energy by weekly protests since Figurehead Trump’s inauguration (concert shirts available now) had put Milo in the spotlight. Particularly when he was invited to address students at Berkeley College, only to have it cancelled when a peaceful protest got disrupted by rioters breaking windows, throwing shit (well I can condone that considering the target), and starting a massive fire. And because of that ill-advised reaction and liberal hypocrisy on anti-fascist concerns (even fascists have constitutional rights, sorry), it made him more popular and he wound up getting booked on shows and getting a book deal.
He got on Bill Maher’s real time and was gifted a very long interview by the show’s standards, and another 10 minutes online on the overtime segment, with the aid of phenomenal intrepid reporter Jeremy Scahill of The Intercept bailing out on the show because of Milo’s presence.
Maher got real pissed and practically called Scahill a coward, (or more likely a pussy or a whiny little bitch, the latter his failed attempt at a catchphrase to ruin the Trump campaign), for refusing to come on to engage with a debate. Which was very cheap for him to accuse him of. And also being similarly hypocritical about how boycotting the show was a blow for free speech. When Maher should himself damn well know that a boycott is free speech itself.
But accusing Scahill of cowardice is baseless and almost slanderous, because Jeremy has risked his life and been in the shit in middle east warzones, reporting and writing books on the taxpayer funded quagmires, the plundering of monetary and energy resources and the random bombings, and the reactions of innocent families and individuals and their disenfranchisement from their homelands from these operations over there that has diplomatically fucked this nation for a lifetime. At the time when Milo was writing critiques about cartoons and video games in his studio apt and encouraging harassment of female fans of the genre. Scahill would no doubt reduced Milo to a barely pulsating globule with the effect of slowly pouring salt on a slug for an hour. But in retrospect he’s right about not giving a bigger platform than he has now. Because Milo’s fans will just see it has a liberal media attack without merit.
Well, not so much anymore. Now that a recent podcast clip the whole nation has heard proclaiming his defense of consensual pedophilia. And unlike when candidate Trump told Billy 10 years ago that he can grab any woman by the pussy, this ain’t going to go away or become part of the lexicon. For he is not the president, he is just a loudmouth faggot (that’s your term Milo) with a laptop and is expendable. And he lost his book deal from Simon and Schuster and stupendously lost his job at Brietbart, which now suddenly has standards to live up to.
If there’s a conspiratorial aspect to this, it’s certain that all the parties that exploited him knew he was going to crash one day. Probably because he was getting too much attention with the protests and the riots that it wasn’t prudent to let a flaming homosexual be the number one political activist voice for the people, and mostly the alt-right, which I still don’t know what the fuck that is. In a way, his demise and expulsion resembles the way the Nation Of Islam rejected Malcolm X, who actually wound up more tolerant and wound up assassinated for it. Although with Milo, nobody gives a shit except for the people who are engaging in schandefreude at his self-immolation.
He became famous as a social assassin, and assassinated himself. You know you had it coming faggot.
Four subway breakdancers beat up a straphanger on a Brooklyn train who objected to making room so they could do their routine, police sources said Thursday.
The dancers, four men in their 20s, asked passengers to make room so they could perform their routine for tips aboard an A train in East New York about 1:20 p.m. Wednesday. The 40-year-old victim objected, sparking an argument, sources said.
The dancers punched the 40-year-old victim several times in the face and fled when the train pulled into the Euclid Ave. station.
It was bound to happen. It’s astounding it took this long. For this may be the first reported incident committed by these perpetually annoying, self-deluded, dubiously talented dumbshits actually attacking someone with the temerity and persistence to stand his rightful ground for the unjustly cost of commuting in the 4 boroughs in the worst fucking transit system in the universe.
The obvious must be stated that these dancers are in their 20’s and are trying to bum dollars and change off of passengers rather than get a real job. Why they thought they were going to get a decent or even equitable amount of money by plying their 80’s dancestyling trade in the poorest area on the subway like Euclid Ave. and East New York instead of tourist heavy stops in midtown and downtown Manhattan is just as mind-boggling stupid.
But there’s something else here that has to be acknowledged. That citizens of this city are at their whit’s end and can’t take it anymore. On both sides here in this incident. The victim, who probably is daily sickened at paying 27.50 a week like most normal people and who was probably tired of seeing these lousy cap flinging and leg flailing morons invading passengers space and jeopardizing their safety and their own. And even these breakdancers, who think they can make better money doing this crap since it’s tax free and without employer supervision. It’s also possible that a lot of them are having difficulty getting an actual job or there are just part-time jobs available, the latter being more likely since a majority of these are service jobs. It still doesn’t excuse these motherfuckers though, because now that they have brutalized some innocent guy for no reason instead of just moving to the next car. And they now have a taste of the old ultraviolence and will do it again, especially since they are still out there and surprisingly there is no video of the mugging. Not even on the odious World Star Hip Hop (good riddance)
The Old Ultraviolence
These groups have been a nuisance for a while. Even though summons and arrests went up it hasn’t stopped Showtime! at all. And it’s because this city is too fucking crowded. And a lot of people are broke. Like those criminals running free on the streets right now, and probably that guy who persisted and kept his dignity. And these incidents are being and will continue to be overlooked because it’s too overpopulated to keep count and catch up to. Because the people who run this city are more concerned with marketing the 5 boroughs like a theme park destination than to keep it functioning properly, than to be concerned with the occasional preventable tussle in a subway car in the middle of the day. Or even various reports of random gruesome crime this winter.
More to come…
Editor’s note: I would show some examples of these talent wasters, and there are lots, but I refuse because it would only encourage and promote them, for being a celebrity is way too easy thanks to social media, made worse with facebook live and the criminally wretched snapchat, and people without talent should not be famous, or president.
And if there was footage of this cowardly beatdown, I would also refuse to post it because it would only encourage and promote them, and it would encourage more stupid people, and this generation has an abundance of them, to engage in similar behavior, which has only enhanced thanks to social media, made worse with facebook live and the cuntbully-generating, no reason to exist snapchat
This has to stop. Now. For Liberty and Justice For All, And Country and even God or whatever deity you may prefer. This is serious like a heart attack
Now that the shark jump being the Greatest Diversion that was Don Worthless’s improv comic press conference.
Figurehead Donald J. Trump and the one party rule in the Congress and Senate is blatantly fucking with you, the people, the nation over and over. Their psychotic and infinite satiety for personal wealth among themselves and the confederacy of overseer oligarchs is rapidly becoming instituted national policy as the dissemination of his executive order failures and pathetically obvious bullshit excreted by the commander in chief and his staff of lobotomized primates.
For this human paraquat the nation elected thinks that spending 75 minutes childishly disrespecting the free press, the fourth estate, using the best words consisting of lame insults, redundant and irrelevant answers, irresponsibly insinuating threats against nations (did anyone catch when he told the press that they will never know if he has plans for North Korea and Iran regarding Russian acts of aggression), admonishing them to shut up and sit down and to end it with latent racism and blatant condescension towards an hasidic and african-american reporter is going to erase the most malevolent and disastrous month of shaping and running the government by this arrogant 6 foot gunny bag of shit and dead dicks topped with golden straw.
The quick destruction of his clusterfuck sadistic and unconstitutional travel/Muslim ban by 3 judges. Which basically is the first betrayal and broken promise to all his supporters and to the voters that cast his ballot.
The validation of Senator “Next President” Elizabeth Warren even after getting barred from the confirmation process of Jefferson Sessions for Attorney General on a flimsy rule dredged up by Senator Mitch “Bitch” McConnell, who yet again became a joke on the internet from his lame proclamation “nevertheless, she persisted“. Turning that dismissal into another universal protest quote for female empowerment and giving the next commander in chief more exposure and familiarity.
The mind-blowing exposure of a national security conference meeting in Trump’s Miami Palace Hotel stupidly being conducted in the outdoor dining area. Being illuminated by insecure smartphone flashlights and being documented a stupid rich asshole platinum club member Richard “Dickhead” DeAgazo and friend of the Figurehead on his facebook page.
The Situation Patio.
The declining of the Labor Secretary position by odious subhuman owner and chairman of Carl’s Jr and Hardees, Andrew Pudzer. This was technically a huge victory for minimum wage and living wage salaried workers across the land. And most importantly a victory for human beings, for this guy desires robots to flip his burgers than to give his employees raises. Reportedly, he was rejected for being an brutally abusive bastard, beating and molesting his wife and an executive and fostering a perverted neanderthal working environment and rampant wage theft in his restaurant chains. And he also hired illegal immigrants to clean his mansion. With these wretched prior offenses to society, it’s a pleasant surprise that Trump let him go without protest and maybe a sign that he has evolved from his own sordid past with similarbehavior he had towards his first wife and mother of his first lady daughter and his quasi-envoy sons.
The press conference with Prime Minister Natenyahu and his pussyfooting response concerning the two state solution for peaceful coexistence. And how Bibi stoically stood there smirking when Trump told him to ease up on building settlements on Palestinian territory, which he already did in spades and with bulldozers, secure in the knowledge of the support of Trump’s boy wonder advisor Jared Kushner, and blew off his meaningless request by derisively saying that “it’s the art of the deal right?” Despite the unofficial foreign policy permission for a potential apartheid state, Trump still looked like a stunned fool.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Then there is former NSA Advisor General Michael Flynn. Professing loyalty to the Trump campaign in the earliest stages. RNC convention MC, when maligning Manifest Hillary getting the crowd to yell “lock her up” and remarking that if he did half the stuff she did with her separate server during her tenure as Secretary Of State, he would be in prison, will now get his ironic just desserts, thanks to his creepy wheeling and dealing and reassurances of sanction lifts with a crooked Russian official before Trump got elected and before he got his position in the NSA. And subsequently lying about these exchanges to Trump’s media and press team, Conway and Spicer and idiotically or intentionally (or intentionally and idiotically) misleading Vice President Pence before his interview on Face The Nation about these confirmed rumors of treason. The good news coming out of this scary breach of corrupt diplomacy is that it may have ruined Kellyanne Conway’s career as a professional lying douchehag representing the White House and from being a future pundit.
What is sick about Flynn’s fuckup is that Trump may have given him these orders so he can be the fall guy when it got exposed and might be the reason that Steve Bannon to a principal position in the NSA. Flynn and maybe from those pics that evening in Miami may be also contributing to the disturbing fact that all of the intelligence agencies are committing mutiny by refusing to share pertinent intel with the Figurehead, citing total mistrust in their commander. And a palpable sense of disrespect judging by the almost daily leaks about the Figurehead’s scattershot policy plans, no doubt caused by Trump’s plausible deniability responses about the dismissal or resignation of Gen. Flynn., because as is well documented by the tremendous mind of the Figurehead and his conviction of the use of extreme vetting that inspired his massive failure ban, he knows he must look bad since he picked this reckless jerk.
It’s quite unfunny that, considering all these leaks and being that they are basically and arbitrarily illegal, that after the brutal treatment of Chelsea Manning and the unjustified pursuit of Edward Snowden, that this rebellious behavior and irreverence towards the presidency is now being tolerated by the Deep State. It’s alarming if this is the case, and shocking that Figurehead Trump has not used this for his latest excuse (oh he did?) to again deflect from his utter incompetence and autocrat tendencies as the leader of the free world. Which he reminds us, is a mess.
And so is the country and government that he inherited, no thanks to the biggest electoral margin in his mind, which he repetitively responded to whichever fake news monger he called on.
As for the grand national airing dissemination of best words that he shared in front of piss lemon embroidered curtains with the fourth estate, this may have been decided by the Figurehead himself. For he felt that Kellyanne and Spicey couldn’t deflect questions or spread the bullshit good enough and might even incriminate themselves or him even further by getting stumped about our new ally and dominant superpower yearning nation, Russia.
The thing is, he did a very shitty job himself. All of his answers were nonsense, non sequiturs, mockeries and mimicries. There were times, and Trump has displayed this before, where he resembles the antics of Larry David, the one on Curb Your Enthusiam, especially in his mannerisms, crude self-righteousness when he answers pertinent questions and engages in frustrating banter with the fake news mongers in the room, now officially the enemies of the state. He’s even still feuding with Rosie O’Donnell for crying out loud, just like Larry. If there needs to be action taken against Figurehead Autocrat Trump, CNN should hire comedian Susie Essman, equip her with credentials and send her in character as Susie Greene and put her in the next press conference that this, as she would say to Larry, bald asshole decides to cobble together and bombard him with questions about his pandering to Putin with profanities, demeaning insults and rebut his demands to shut up and sit down by yelling louder and going to the podium and chest bump him like Charles Oakley. (If you use this SNL, remember to cut me some cheddar and a writing credit, and also acknowledgement of this struggling digital publication.)
Please CNN, make it happen.
Unfortunately, Figurehead Trump got what he wanted, since this oratory debacle stayed on cable news all weekend long and got mocked on the late night shows. And in a twisted kizmet way, improved viewer ratings for their shows and networks. In the meantime, a career climate change refuser contrarian and greedy fucking fuck named Scott Pruitt got confirmed to head the EPA, a government branch that he spent the majority of his late career trying to destroy in court, and the most essential stipulations of the Dodd-Frank act is in the first stage of being dismantled.
And all these jokes and depictions about his press conference didn’t do a dent on Trump and his ego and id, because it’s impossible to affect a borderline sociopath who has no sense of shame or decency. And to prove his demented point, he held a 2020 campaign rally on an airplane hangar in Florida. Where he put his harrowed wife on stage to recite the lord’s prayer. The bizarre thing is either that he used her and that to introduce him or if he thinks as the President he can ordain ministers. Also a collective of African Americans holding Blacks for 2020 signs(!!!) And then in an impromptu, man of the people moment he brought a supporter onstage for the reason that he saw being interviewed on TV (Trump likes watching television), and liked what he said. Well this guy came up all excited (Trump remarked that he was worried he was going to kiss him once he saw him, not seeing the irony in that) said some inane shit and giving unmerited praise to the President Figurehead, but the choice of this attire might have got him a free pass from the secret service, he was wearing a concert t-shirt of Trump’s inauguration.
Usually, the majority of these shirts commemorating events have cheap materials and cheesy printing. But that shirt is vividly immaculate. It looks like a prototype about to go on the assembly line. Someone (cough, Trump, cough) is looking to make some cheddar marketing the only successful thing that the President has actually achieved so far, the day he got the job and the crowd size in his deluded mind.
But you know what, the permeating stench of big league impropriety still hangs on the elected one, in the recent article about all the money he owes to an scandal ridden international bank and the interlocking links between him, his kin and his favorite country.
If you measure President Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest by the amount of money at stake, or the variety of dicey interactions with government regulators, one dwarfs any other: his relationship with Deutsche Bank.
In recent weeks, Deutsche Bank has scrambled to reach agreements with American regulators over a host of alleged misdeeds. But because the president has not sold his company, the bank remains a central arena for potential conflicts between his family’s business interests and the actions of officials in his administration.
Deutsche is Trump’s major creditor, having lentbillions to the president since the late 1990s even as other American banks abandoned Trump, who frequently bankrupted his businesses. While the president hasn’t released his tax returns, he has made public some information about his debts. According to these incomplete disclosures and reports, the Trump Organization has roughly $300 million in loans outstanding from the bank. Trump continues to own the business, although he has turned over day-to-day management to his sons.
At the same time that it is Trump’s biggest known creditor, Deutsche is in frequent contact with multiple federal regulators. While the bank agreed last week to pay $630 million to settle charges by New York state’s top financial regulator as well as the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority that it had aided Russian money-laundering, it’s still undergoing a related federal investigation into those activities, which it is also trying to settle. That will be an early big test of the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Justice Department also has an ongoing probe of foreign exchange manipulation by several banks, including Deutsche Bank.
For years, Donald Trump has used a powerful tool when dealing with bankers: his personal guarantee.
Now that guarantee — employed to extract better terms on hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to the Trump Organization — is at the center of a delicate loan-restructuring discussion at Deutsche Bank AG, which is under investigation on several fronts by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The bank is trying to restructure some of Trump’s roughly $300 million debt as part of an attempt to reduce any conflict of interest between the loan and his presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter. Normally, the removal of a personal pledge might lead to more-stringent terms. But there is little normal about this interaction. Trump’s attorney general will inherit an investigation of Deutsche Bank related to stock trades for rich clients in Russia — where Trump says he plans to improve relations — and may have to deal with a possible multibillion-dollar penalty to the bank related to mortgage-bond investigations.
“When you have political appointees making decisions about banks that the president owes a lot of money to, it looks terrible,” said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who was the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “The U.S. government is dealing with regulatory and criminal issues with the big banks all the time, and if he owes them a lot of money, there might be an incentive to favor less regulation and less enforcement for the banks.”
The scramble to restructure is the latest chapter in Trump’s fraught relationship with Deutsche Bank, one of the few financial institutions on Wall Street that still does deals with a man long known as a publicity-seeking and unconventional real-estate developer who didn’t hesitate to sue his lender eight years ago.
Deutsche Bank also lends to Trump’s extended family, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Weeks before the election, the bank refinanced most of the $370 million of debt against retail spaces Kushner’s company owns in midtown Manhattan.
Herein lies the true motive for Figurehead Trump and Russia’s mutual interest to win the election and run the nation for the next 4 years, or long enough for Trump to sit in the oval office if impeachment hearings eventually start, is to bail out Trump’s empire, big oil companies and Russia’s struggling economy.
Now it makes sense of the obvious vetting of the likes of oiligarch Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson, and all those jackals from Goldman Sachs.
It’s going to be the biggest bankruptcy hearing in world history. With Attorney General Jefferson Sessions III presiding over it.
The suffering subway, bus and rail system may have less money to move New Yorkers.
A line tucked deep in Gov. Cuomo’s executive budget from last month calls for a $65 million cut to a chunk of money the state gives to the MTA — down to $244 million from $309 million last year. The 21% cut, if it survives the budget process, would hit the MTA at a time when commuters are fuming over frequent delays, spotty service, overcrowding and constant fare hikes.
“If Gov. Cuomo wants to take credit for opening the Second Ave. subway, he also has to take responsibility of the day-to-day operations in the rest of the subway system,” said John Raskin, director of the Riders Alliance.
The money from the state’s general fund is supposed to keep the MTA whole after the state in 2011 slashed a politically unpopular payroll tax on businesses in the region served by the transit network. “This funding is based only on a promise,” Raskin said. “We had a fear that a moment like this would come to pass, where the governor is proposing to break that promise.”
The Riders Alliance and about 20 commuters will rally with lawmakers at the capitol Monday to get the legislature to reverse the cut.“We want more service and better transit options. The MTA always says they don’t have the money for it,” said Assemblywoman Nily Rozic (D-Queens), who will be at the rally.
The Dirty Southeast, Richmond Hill, Queens, N.Y.
What a nasty surprise Mario’s son Governor Andrew Cuomo has gave us after his vainglorious grand opening of the most expensive and massively delayed minor subway expansion in recent memory.
Never mind that the worst transit system in the fucking universe has seen daily preposterous delays and scattershot line changes every weekend. The impending and irresponsibly overdue suspension of the L line to Manhattan. And the rise of habitation of indigent and mentally ill homeless people and criminal trends like petty larceny, deviant sexual exposure and harassment, and track deaths via suicide and pushing commuters into oncoming trains.
Never mind hour long delays caused by recent incidents of flooding after storms or even a few days after a modest snowfall or even during an extraordinary windy day.
Never mind the painfully obvious fact of overpopulation and overcrowding, no thanks to greedy developers and the groveling pandering spineless whores being our corrupt mayor and city council taking their filthy donor lucre, leading to hyper-development near the transit lines. Suffocating the cars and platforms as one gets closer to the city.
And mostly never mind the fact that the subway is still being guided by a century old signal system. Consisting of little bulbs, faucet levers, rusty boxes and dangling wires and tags.
For you, the transit customer, will just have to remain tolerant and accept these hapless yet preventable inconveniences, for our governor somehow needs the monies for other pressing matters, or maybe just squandered it for his gilded age new year’s eve party in the 86th street gallery station.
Of course, when in light of the aforementioned 2nd avenue celebratory debut that Andy hosted, a lot of lesser structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing stations that are devoid of modern art are going to have to wait a little longer for crucial repairs and updates.
For example. The 2 year modernization of the Lefferts Blvd. A Line Station for which this digital publication has documented previously. Apparently those posts have not made the impact I initially hoped for, despite the highest viewer count I got for my screed against our oblivious governor. By happenstance, I wound up at the end of the workday by the 2nd Ave 72nd street station Q line and took some snapshots on what selective proactive and diligent government action can do.
From left to right, then left to right. The entrance at 69th street, the awning gives the impression of going into space mountain. The deep, well illuminated escalator from top to bottom. The stupid art, notably the popsicle wielding cop. The pointless latin inscripture. And, last but not least, a bland jazz cover band consisting of hipster stereotypes for vibrancy. The enormity of this station will not be immune to inevitable homeless habitation that will certainly consume all this unnecessary space and the lame unprotected art will surely be defaced with graffiti by more crude creative hooligans. Since millions are going to reallocated, ensuring the station’s vulnerability to blight.
The Lefferts stalled stairway entrance on the other hand:
There has been some mild progress, there are more orange buoys surrounding the area awaiting the long anticipated stairway. They somewhat scrubbed most of the pigeon shit off by the turnstiles, although quarter-assed, because apparently they left it there so long that it has now become a permanent stain. Which is as close to art as you can get. They removed some of the tarp off the elevator. And they finally updated the duct taped completion date sheet for reassurance and long overdue acknowledgement of the inconvenience this pathetic elongated neglect has caused for the masses. So instead of being completed on January 2016 2017 it will be done whenever the end of the first quarter is. I’m not fluent in Albany or MTA front office bureaucrat-speak but I am going to guesstimate that this daily eyesore will finally be of use in June.
Now with this nasty surprise by Mario’s son, I think this is going to remain dormant for a long time, as well as other stops in towns with less cache, glass towers, marked up studios, wine bars and cupcake shops. And with the recent decision to keep the fare at 2.75, this blatant indifference will continue still, for now the agency has warped justification to keep the status quo of shiftless and lousy service.
Live from Madison Square Garden, one time known as Run’s House.
Let this ruckus be the first symbolic act against billionaire entitlement. Charles Oakley, legendary power forward and one of the greatest players on the unheralded Knicks dynasty of the 90’s was treated like a common criminal as he was suddenly surrounded by a phalanx of MSG security guards summoned by craven trust fund baby James Dolan. Oakley, who bought his own ticket to attend the game, was informed to relinquish his seat and leave the arena for allegations that he was being a nuisance to the snowflake owner sitting a few rows up and for being inebriated. Oakley claimed that he wasn’t doing anything of the sort nor was he drunk, but Dolan’s security was adamant that he should leave and proceeded to forcibly remove him. The enforcer, visibly shocked at the way he was treated, reacted violently, arguably justified, using the brutal physicality he displayed against the greatest players of all time, like Barkley, Jordan, and Reggie Miller, and started chest pumping and finger jabbing as Dolan’s personal militia and some of the NYPD (you’re welcome, sincerely yours, taxpayers) dragged him out to the aisles and was subsequently arrested and brought downtown, and handed a desk appearance ticket for this ludicrous attack on his legacy and dignity.
The videos are quite revealing from both angles. Showing the preposterous methods by Prince Dolan’s MSG Militia, utilizing tactics that looked disturbingly similar to the handling of the arrest of Eric Garner. Oakley’s shocked reaction at the impugning and denial of his rights as a paying customer to be there. And most of all, Prince Dolan’s reaction as the ruckus exacerbated. He just stands there and watches doing nothing to stop it, almost approvingly and with judgemental smugness, as one of the most dedicated athletes ever to play for the Knicks gets treated worse than a career felon or a rabid dog.
But there are actual reasons for this petty feud, and it mostly doesn’t reflect on the middle-aged manchild billionaire and perennially incompetent CEO, now that it has come to a decisive optically disastrous end.
Back in 2010, Lebron James, the best player in the game today, was about to leave his hometown team and was weighing his options about what team to play for (The Decision). One of those teams was the Knicks. According to a recent profile by the NY Times a few months ago, Oakley, a fellow native of Cleveland, dissuaded James from considering joining the franchise. The aftermath of this correspondence has not been kind to The Enforcer.
Oakley has been estranged from the Knicks organization for years, a rift that stems, at least in part, from Oakley’s inability to keep some of his more caustic opinions to himself. He has, at different times, criticized the team’s front office, coaches and resident stars. In 2010, he advised James to avoid signing with the Knicks in free agency, which hardly endeared him to the organization. He has also called James L. Dolan, the owner, a bunch of bad names.
Oakley may have also unwittingly gave the exalted son of Cablevision a paranoid rationale to keep him away from him, short of filing an actual restraining order. Although it’s apparent where he felt the necessity of having hired personal and tax-payer funded muscle to shield his thin skin and hair plugs.
“The boss don’t like me,” Oakley said last week. “I wouldn’t mind having a sit-down dinner with Dolan. I wouldn’t mind cooking him dinner.” Pause. “Might put something in it, though!” Pause.“I mean, I had at least 15 people try to set up a meeting. He won’t meet. I want to sit down to talk to him. I want me and him in a room. And lock the door. Lock that door!” Another pause. “I mean, he can have the police outside the door.”
Despite the coarse wording and inherit bitterness, which probably stems from being traded to the Toronto Raptors in 1999, and the writer’s illustrative placing of pauses, this was an actual reaching out to negotiate with Dolan and a man’s obvious devotion and appreciation to a team he had his greatest success in, . But like all men who inherited their wealth and position of power, the pathetic aspiring rock star was not having any of it and doubled down on his malignant disrespect. And naturally, meekly using his employees to throw shade on the legendary Knick.
Barry Watkins, a spokesman for Madison Square Garden, said: “The Knicks have fabulous relationships with almost all of our alumni. But when it comes to Charles’s relationship with the organization, he is his own worst enemy.” On Saturday, the Knicks celebrated the franchise’s 70th anniversary by honoring several former players and family members at halftime of their home opener at Madison Square Garden. Oakley was not among them. He cannot understand why he has been exiled. To him, it is beyond comprehension.
Not hard to comprehend anymore. As Jimmy, with the same aplomb that he utilizes his stadium security has his personal goon squad, which he actually did before to Oakley to intimidate him a few years ago, as used this preventable incident to accuse the Knick legend of being mentally unstable, a drunk and banning him from the arena, capping off his vindictive attempt to erase Charles Oakley from the history of the franchise, despite him being a member of the last time the team, although they did not win a title, was one of the most dominant and feared teams in the NBA.
But after this weaselly attempt to trash The Enforcer, Oakley has received support and reverence from all the best players of this era and his fellow legends, and thanks to social media, to universal support from fans old and new. And J.D., dickhead, has now joined the swelling ranks of hated, unmeritorious, self-entitled, tax evading, power tripping and abusing billionaires and the long overdue ire of sports journalism and broadcasters.
Let’s see him try to summon his secret service posse, net worth and his crack p.r. minions protect him from the deluge of jeers and karmic indignation. Although he’ll be a man short because he threw his chief security officer under the bus.
This face saving and ass covering decision, along with Oakley’s humiliation, is going to cost Dolan yet more millions in lawsuit settlements. Not that he has prior experience settling disgraceful embarrassing cases in court before.
Dolan is a very, very small man and a proven loser.And he has unwittingly and stupidly made Charles Oakley a bigger legend, and a working class hero for this desperate age of political strife and still widening economic disparity.
President Figurehead Trump took a breather from writing executive orders to 1: let congress legislate a couple of stupid sadistic things like honoring the second amendment rights of the mentally ill to possess guns, and liberating irresponsible and miserly energy companies to resume dumping of coal waste and debris into the nation’s waters (you’re not alone Dakota Protectors) and the freeing of methane to the air around it, and regulations ensuring the health and safety of their dedicated yet expendable employees. 2. To acknowledge and reassure his holy roller donors that their christian fatwa agenda will not be overlooked.
Take the “bestwords”, a phrase that has replaced “doublespeak”, uttered by President Figurehead Trump from his first address at the annual National Prayer Breakfast:
“Our republic was formed on the basis that freedom is not a gift from government, but that freedom is a gift from God. [APPLAUSE] It was the great Thomas Jefferson who said, the God who gave us life, gave us liberty. Jefferson asked, can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Among those freedoms is the right to worship according to our own beliefs. That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution. I will do that, remember.”
Emphasis mine. Why? Because of the Citizens United decision, where the Supreme Court agreed with the namesake political activist group and officially sanctioned money as free speech (the establishment of money talks, not sure where these people stand on bullshit walking). The” bestwording” employed by Figurehead Trump is not a clarion call for the overtly religious to defend themselves from the repression from secular and agnostic types on their right to worship, which they already had being that it’s instilled in the constitution, but to raise unlimited money through various channels for the candidates of of their choice and liking. It’s made it easier for billionaire ideologues like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson on the neocon side and George Soros on the neolib, to name a few, to donate unlimited amounts through various superpacs and 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) . So one can only imagine what massive evangelical institutions will exploit campaign fundraising deregulation. The money raised from their devoted flocks and through the possibility of legalized money laundering through their churches and charities will ensure the materialization of a candidate in the mold of Elmer Gantry.
Or it will certainly, eventually lead to other religious organizations to seize the glorious opportunity if Figurehead Trump goes on to destroy it. Religions like protestant, scientology, sun worshippers, and of course the Figurehead and his self-righteous benefactors and enablers adversary, Islam, can allocate unlimited amounts of speech/money from anyone and anywhere, especially through the use of 501 charity non-profits. Because of the total lack of those pesky sinful regulations, some benefactors may turn out to be Saudi Princes or Tom Cruise and the unaccounted for loads of donor cash will be part of the ether in DC, and various state and local offices (as if they weren’t already, re: aforementioned billionaires). Think about that Mr. President Mr.Figurehead.
But before the blowback happens, there is the prospect of christian zealot legislation involving homosexual conversions and criminalizing planned parenthood, and the drilling and extracting of energy resources in the mountains, lands and oceans that God created.
The day after finding being reminded of religion and how disenfranchised the religious right base was, unencumbered by the obvious lie behind it (what happened to the 9th commandment? I guess the Trump vessel was carrying the gift of liberty by God for an exemption from it), the Figurehead went back to the white house and wrote another executive order to lift regulatory provisions on financial trading by banks, venture capital and hedge fund firms. Or in his usual ineloquent phrasing, “doing a number” on the Dodd-Frank Act:
It’s a executive legislative document, not macaroni art.
Prior to a meeting with his economic advisory council on Friday morning, President Donald Trump held a briefing to set the agenda for it. “There’s nobody better to tell me about Dodd-Frank than Jamie,” Trump said, referring to 2010’s Dodd-Frank Act, the single most visible legislative consequence of the banking crisis, and also to J.P. Morgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, with whom he would later meet to discuss regulation. “We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank,” Trump said. “I have so many people, friends of mine, with nice businesses, they can’t borrow money, because the banks just won’t let them borrow because of the rules and regulations and Dodd-Frank.”
Emphasis mine again. Because the philanthropic yet creepy tone this statement conveys gives yours truly the impression that Figurehead Trump not only aspires to be an outright autocrat of the nation but like the legendary and notorious mafia don mob bosses who ruled the streets of NY (and Chicago and Boston) in the last 3/4 of the 20th century. Don Inutile didn’t seem to mind having them at his disposal while building his eponymous empire in the 80’s.It would be nice to know who his recent friends are, maybe hoteliers, luxury condo developers and golf course owners with the Trump brand seal of approval in God’s Country. And also around the world, specifically where his son Eric has been acting as a quasi–envoy, and oppressive nations ruled by royal despotic regimes.
But it mostly might be his friends in Goldman Sachs, meaning the three avaricious hounds in his cabinet, recently confirmed Secretary Mnuchin (thanks Schumer, you baby), Strategist and unilateral Madman NSA Advisor Steve Bannon, and the obvious architect for it’s dismantling, Economic Director Gary Cohn, who, as with his heinous tenure making milions at his former workplace fucking with clients and investors, will surely know where all the derivative trading and credit default swapping money and finances will go, if their plan to neuter Dodd-Frank will be to destroy the Volcker Rule and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is chaired by Senator Elizabeth “Next President” Warren. The CFPB is basically considered to be ISIS to the megalith banks for its crucial rules to protect homeowners and consumers from the former nefarious tactics of their banks that they entrusted their livelihoods to. Prior to these institutions, it made millionaires in the specific fields traversed by Mnuchim (mortgages) and Cohn (mortgages also, and nation debt).
Some of the Figurehead’s other friends maybe his peers in real estate. Especially those involved in changing the skyline in major cities with behemoth tower development that’s behind the rapid rise of gentrification and the exceeding cost of living among the working poor and even middle class residents. Certainly when Trump is done after 4 years, or 8 or even if he’s impeached or just quits, would like to get back to slapping his eyesore goldtone brand on glass monoliths of upscale blight.
With these two debts to the evangelical christian and finance complexes paid to continue to his good fortune, self-promotion and self-aggrandizement, when will he get around to the forgotten. The people. The people who came to the rallies, that shared the fury and frustrations he claim he understood. That went to the voting booths, checked his brand name and elected him president.
Does Figurehead Trump consider them friends anymore? Or was the blanket Muslim and immigrant ban and suppression of gay intimacy and denial of health care to poor women suppose to keep them mollified while he’s plotting to change the rules for the benefit of his allies?
The forgotten has to wait a little longer. But it’s alright because the figurehead already signed up to run for another term and he’ll get around to them. Believe me.
It took 6 months but the NYPD got the suspect. Chanel Davis, just 20 years old was captured by his parents house in East New York, Brooklyn. Reportedly, his motive stemmed from a domestic dispute and he bizarrely decided to walk all the way to Howard Beach to get something to eat. Apparently it wasn’t the first time he traversed there for he was seen there previous to the murder by residents, notably Lt. John Russo, in the area by Spring Creek Park, one time wielding a crowbar, which led to the uncanny sketch of him.
In retrospect, his presence and behavior, and reportedly he used to go to the town a lot, suggests he was planning an attack of this sort, maybe even targeting the victim for a length of time considering Karina’s workout routine and regular route she chose. One picture has her flexing by the Gateway Mall in Brooklyn, which is easily accessible by the long bike and jogging path up the belt parkway and not too far away from Chanel’s home. He could have been stalking her for months and got the heinous opportunity to catch her alone
The lengthy investigation was in a standstill because of a lack of DNA evidence for the fact that Chanel had no prior arrests. And being a young man and former honor student in school, his parents and peers would not even suspect him doing anything brutal. Although he exhibited disturbing behavior in school with threats against female classmates. Fortunately, this guy could have done even more killing or even developed into a serial killer if it wasn’t for the determination and skills of the NYPD and her parents persistence. For that, Karina can rest in peace and the residents in Howard Beach and residents who live near other parks can rest a little easier and enjoy their surroundings without fear.
The billionaire real-estate dynasty behind Brooklyn’s hipster DUMBO neighborhood bilked struggling tenants out of a fortune in rent, a new lawsuit alleges. The Walentas family — whose ties to Mayor de Blasio have been scrutinized in the investigations into the city’s pay-to-play scandal — allegedly filed false statements to help land $92 million in city tax breaks and other subsidies, the suit says. Then patriarch David, son Jed and associates used “extortion’’ and other alleged forms of deceit to jack up the rents at downtown 125 Court St. over the years and illegally pocket $10 million, according to the residents’ lawyer and the document, which was filed in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday. “This is a racketeering enterprise — it’s basically organizedfraudulent activity,’’ the tenants’ lawyer, Matthew Berman, told The Post.
The plaintiffs even claim to have a company mole as a witness. That person is a former rental agent and Two Trees worker who acknowledged that the defendants “intentionally sat down and agreed in advance to take part in an unlawful scheme to illegally charge inflated rents to rent-stabilized tenants,” the suit says.
According to the suit, the family’s powerhouse company, Two Trees:
Duped the city and state to net lucrative tax breaks meant for rent-stabilized and affordable-housing properties.
“Committed extortion’’ by allegedly tricking tenants into shelling out more than they owed in monthly rent by sending phony notices saying rent was due.
“Coerced’’ the cheaper-paying residents into vacating their apartments so the developer could charge new tenants 20 percent higher rents.
The lawsuit suggests that government officials turned a blind eye to the allegedly illegal shenanigans because they were “influenced no doubt by campaign contributions made by Defendants and their associates.
“It is a matter of public record that seven developers wrote checks totaling $245,000 to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York before de Blasio announced plans for a streetcar along the Brooklyn waterfront, with stops near the developers’ projects, including $100,000 from Defendant Jed Walentas,’’ the suit says. De Blasio has denied any connection between the big bucks and pushing his street-car plan.
Court papers describe the Walentases as a $4 billion family empire “known for its singular role in transforming the Brooklyn neighborhood of “DUMBO” (an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) where the company’s holdings include 12 buildings comprising more than 3 million square feet of commercial and residential real estate.’’ The family also is behind the $3 billion conversion of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg into luxury pads.
Two Trees bought the 125 Court St, property at Atlantic Avenue in 2003 for $16.5 million, according to reports. They then went after millions of dollars in public funding by promising to provide rent-stabilized and affordable housing, the suit says.But over the years, the developers knowingly misrepresented the market value of units so they could illegally inflate rents, the courtpapers say.The lawsuit adds that “despicably, Defendants even perpetrated this fraud upon the low-income tenants of the units designated as ‘affordable housing.’ ” The tactics led to a 300 percent tenant turnover rate at the building between 2005 and 2013, or 10 times the citywide figure, the suit says.
Finally. Even though this lawsuit is in it’s nascent stage, let this be the absolute confirmation of the superficial intentions and broken false promise to end the tale of two cities Mayor de Faustio exhorted on his public inauguration ceremony 3 years ago, and the horrid existence of the gentrification industrial complex of avaricious real estate and venture capital interests, compromised government officials and an complicit apparatus of public relations firms, housing website services and a fawning news media to drive up combined fabricated speculations of rental and housing market rates.
These two repulsive maggots are just a few of the enabling predatory developer cabal that is the Real Estate Board Of New York, of whom Dad and Boy Walentas are members, which is beyond any doubt where the last word on whatever legislation regarding what areas get re- and up-zoned, what exemptions are dealt and how the hardhats will get compensated for the difficult and at times perilously hazardous work they will do to build their unsightly out of scale behemoths in established hurricane flood zones.
As this damning lawsuit states, they allegedly utilized the dirty tactic exploiting the perennially outlandish trendy status of the borough of Brooklyn via following the constant refraining bogus real estate speculation derived from the news media (none more garrilous than the NY Times real estate section) and various apt. rental service providers and blogrolls like Streeteasy and Propertyshark. They also got millions in tax breaks from the 421a law to provide a sliver of affordable housing and reneged on that state contract by raising the rents on the rent-stabilized tenants on their building on 125 Court St. in downtown Brooklyn.
This pilfering of tax payer and tenant dollars and their collective sanity and dignity is akin to other odious ploys to drive out poorer and even modest salaried tenants who are deemed unworthy and uncool. Like those who offer lowball buyouts and gut renovations of neighboring apartments. The refusal of basic utilities and maintenance requests; The denial of check payments; And the use of hired goons to intimidate residents by stalking and violating their privacy. These fiendish tactics are bit more sophisticated than the days when slumlords used the dregs of society; gangs and rodents and the use of arson to free up their buildings and properties. Although the latter tactic might be making anotsosubtle comeback. Not to be overlooked is the neutered, weak and borderline indifferent enforcement of the Department of Buildings officers.
All this was made possible to make the branding of the hottest borough in the world (but not the world’s borough, that was dubiously regaled to Queens) that made it the faux luxury resort theme park, and upscale bar and food court that it is today. With the help of dispensing a few hundred large to a 501 (c) (4) kitty run in a government office in City Hall.
The devious philanthropy provided by the Walentases towards our whoring and now troubled mayor also led to minor to non-existent monitoring of their new developments, like the former Domino sugar plant and the hastening process of the idiotic BQX trolley line that happens to traverse their Blade Runner towers of glass properties. The latter giving them access to the offices of city hall via a shady group concern or how they are more commonly know as “friends of the BQX”, not at all as pathetically opaque as the “agents of the city”.
Speaking of those “agents”, the wormtongue adviser firm, BerlinRosen that was illegally loitering in the conference rooms of city hall during meetings regarding city services and planning represents Two Trees. And also the abominable Forest City Ratner, who for the past decade and a half has been destroying and rebuilding the downtown Brooklyn area to the detriment of the residents who don’t reside in their towers and the sunlight that used to shine there. The BQX, not so coincidentally will run by the streets by Ratner’s synthetic metropolis.
The slithering machinations the Gentrification Industrial Complex has done to reshape the shorelines of Brooklyn has wreaked havoc on the rest of the borough, causing rents to ludicrously skyrocket even in still high crime risk areas like Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and East New York, in still middle class and poor areas like Crown Heights and Sunset Park, and is now bleeding into the middle class enclaves in Queens, none more apparent than the hastening out-of-scale tower development in Long Island City.
It also is having a pernicious effect on the area median rates for affordable housing, influencing the fabricated speculative market rates that the Walentas duo engaged in, even leading low level slumlords to exploit this hustle in addition to devaluing their buildings and denying tenants rights and demands for maintenance. Which may have not only led to the further tax paying sanctions of public funded condo housing, but also the incredible record rise of the homeless consensus, which includes working families and veterans.
This lawsuit, long overdue and looks pretty cut and dry, cannot be more timely since it’s coinciding with the impending hearings with D.A. Preet Bharara and the meltdown of their of their long time pal and personal aide, Mayor “Big Slow”” de Faustio” de Blasio and his merry band of neo-liberal deputies and staffers, who still insist on claiming legality for their chicanery and that they have committed no wrong-doing. They will probably cite precedent by mentioning when Donald Trump was buying elected officials and exploiting similar loopholes back in his baby predator days building hotels and a shrine tower to himself in the 80’s
This may be a stretch and maybe hoping too much, but these subhumans might actually see hard time for their twisted ties and underhanded nefarious acts. Maybe it will bring a semblance of closure to all those choosing between eating and paying rent, all those trying to transition from a crappy existence in an apt. filled with mold and vermin, a room with barely any privacy and security, or shacking up in hotel room with no kitchen at the mercy of security contractors and subsiding on shitty city provided sandwiches for lunch and dinner as they wait to win the lottery for that sliver of 20 % affordable housing because of the greed for money and land of Two Trees and the concentration and control of power for our corrupt mayor and his staff.
Dickfacemode. The expression of a man no longer in awe of his elected position. (Nicholas Kahm/AFP/Getty)
It would be an understatement to say that Figurehead President Trump has had a quite prolific week and that he has taken his reputation as a cutthroat landlord, contract squelching developer, and petty litigious dickface to the White House. But in this humble and bitter curmudgeon’s opinion and fellow resident from Queens, it can’t be anymore apparent than the look on that formerly orange and now Spalding Handball hued face of his.
It all started with the lying about the inauguration attendance and the emergency press conference to perpetuate and promote the lie while millions of ladies around the world organized solidarity marches to remind the world of his repulsive sexual advances and sexist shit talking, thus leading to the major network coverage diversion of news interest. An attempt to shut down social media capabilities at the Dept. of Interior backfired for the National Parks debunked the Trump’s proxy Spicer tantrum with their Twitter publication of Obama’s turnout. Which subsequently led to Trump’s chief counsel and continuing campaign manager Kellyanne Conway’s defense by adding the creative adage “alternative facts” to the nation’s intellectual diminishing lexicon.
But President Trump doesn’t give a fuck what you think, what you saw or even what the facts are
He went to CIA headquarters to address the agents and regaled them with his delusions about the crowd size and the news media he declared war on at the previous press conference. The speech was filled with President Trump’s natural proclivity for repetitive usage of positive adjectives (great, tremendous, you all know them) and was peppered with strange uproarious laughter from the agency’s memorial room as the President spoke. Reportedly, it was coming from staffers Trump bought in. Also reportedly, the CIA agents there, who are trained to kill with their bare hands, were spooked and unnerved by the President’s speech to them.
But President Trump doesn’t give a fuck.
Then came the executive orders, which were clearly written hurriedly and haphazardly without thought to reactions and consequences and to compliment the attention span of the renegade commander-in-chief. Influenced by those great generous minds at the Heritage Foundation.
The Affordable Care Act went first of course, which isn’t that objectionable because of the high deductable that makes it practically useless and universal health care would be cheaper. Still, this decision is going to give a lot of people on the plan anxiety, it might lead citizens to rush to join a plan that might be detrimental in the long run, and may discourage new customers from signing one, which may be the intent.
Then for some reason, there was an EO to enact fees on homeowners, which shouldn’t be shocking coming from this President and other multiple home owning elected and appointed officials who harp about the estate tax. This was a cut by President Obama, although in retrospect meager, to give homeowners some relief especially after the 2008 crashing of the economy by scumbag banks and predatory lenders.
After these two sadistic but mostly symbolic decisions, he found time to bitch and moan about the crowd size of the people at the inauguration. But that diversion bore some fruit because he went and signed an EO to track down on voter fraud. For he thinks that the 3 million who voted for Manifest Failure Hillary should have went to him, even the dead ones who registered and voted, presumably from the netherworld counties of these states and a glut of voters who are registered in 2 states. Contradicting his prior claim about if he bothered to campaign in the blue states he would have won them. Trump’s peculiar knowledge of the latter theory is ironic for the fact that his top advisors and family members are also registered in two states. Maybe the President is relying more on experience than misinterpreting a poll.
But the man doesn’t give a fuck what you all think and what you heard.
Then there were a flurry of EO’s that focused on trade and government bureaucracy. TPP was never ratified for this to mean anything and it’s despised in other nations (like New Zealand), this was just a sentimental token signing. The federal hiring freeze sounds good to taxpayers, but the people that have these jobs most likely are middle class. So much for our President’s concern for the forgotten. Those pesky federal regulation guidelines got the symbolic axe from the President’s giant signature, so there will not be any impediments for cheap oligarchs from getting obese wealth at the expense of the safety of their employees and residents who live near their power plants or pipelines.
Speaking of pipelines, there is the utter moronic decision to revive the construction of the potentially disastrous Keystone XL and the government sanctioned plundering of the Dakota Access pipelines. Keystone is a massive risk to the environment and may be ultimately unprofitable and the Dakota pipeline has been rife with chaos due to the resistance of the Native American tribes to protect their only source of clean water and sacred burial grounds in the face of sadistic and quasi-legal oppression of the protests by using tactics like siccing dogs, shotgunning tear gas bombs and using firehoses in freezing weather. It should be noted that our President has a financial stake in the destructive Dakota access venture.
But we all know the President doesn’t give a fuck about emoluments.
As if there is any wonder if Figurehead President Trump is his own man and not one to owe some other people, say a foreign leader a favor for his recent and first real job, there is the EO and part theological edict of the “Global Gag” rule. Which basically defunds health programs by including or even mentioning the word abortion and expands to contraception use across the nation and the world, which can’t be more of a generous sop to Mike Pence and the GOP establishment religious ideologues that helped secure Trump’s nomination to the party. So much for fears of the President being compromised and allegory comparisons to Sharia Law. There is also the decision to end the funding of sanctuary cities, which is understandable considering how it’s being exploited in New York for example, but there would not be a need for them if other states weren’t so rigid and did their fair share taking care of their own poverty situations instead of forcing people out to more populous and denser regions.
The fucking wall in Mexico, the one that nation is supposed to pay for, that now has been decided by President Trump to proceed, has been botched and it now turns out that you the people are going to pay for it after all, maybe twice as revealed on the President’s bizarre interview on ABC last week. After the cancellation of the meeting by the very unpopular president of that nation, which Trump lied was mutual, it now turns out that we are going to pay for it first, via all the federal cuts and reactivation of fees mentioned earlier, and then Trump is going to slap a massive tariff at 20% for all Mexican imports, which will make this generations beloved Coronas and tequila, and even auto parts manufactured there and subsequently cars made here that need them more expensive. It’s practically a double dip on the American Taxpayer. So this fantasy that Mexico will pay for the fucking wall is based on wild-eyed speculation. Which is natural coming from a predatory real estate scion.
This interview had some other ostentatious displays of self-aggrandizement and prideful cognitive dissonance. Notably when the President was showing a expansive photo of his inauguration and his perceived millions that were there like when the dictator in the In-Laws was showing off his art collection and when he was dressing down the interviewer, David Muir, to his face by bringing up how Fox News depicts reports about him and how he derives his opinions on the news medias reporting on him by watching himself on television akin to Peter Sellers character in Being There. (Even Rush Limbaugh gets it, although wrong as usual)
Following this interview, he promoted his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to head the National Security Council, a position formally held by generals. A rise in stature that was alarmingly fast and a disturbing break in executive protocol. A lot of conjecture is bandied about Trump being vulnerable to nation’s where he has financial interests and his political ties to Putin, but the rise of Bannon might be the guy he owes the biggest debt to.
Steve Bannon
And now we come to the Big Kahuna of executive orders. The temporary immigration ban on Muslim majority nations that are hotbeds of terrorism attacks and have ties to funding of terrorist groups, notably a permanent ban on people from Syria. With the exception of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and The United Arab Emirates, nations that have actual ties to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Isis and with the exception of Pakistan, palatial hotels and golf courses with the Trump Brand. Unlike the other orders, the actions demanded on the order happen on day one and on the weekend when plane traveling is highest. Hundreds of immigrants with legal work visas and green cards, people that were already vetted by this nation (though not extremely) were detained by the TSA officers and officials. Which led to protests to all of the cities major airports and apparently preemptive action by civil rights lawyers and elected officials to strike down the unconstitutionality of Trump’s arbitrary and draconian action. It has led to the invocation of habeas corpus in the acquittal of 2 immigrants at JFK and the Trump administrations lifting of the ban and the release of all those detained mercilessly.
This has led to the sudden action and awakening of elected officials in congress, after years of mutual complacency and toleration of Obama’s unconstitutional executive decisions and policies, to boycott confirmation hearings of the attorney general. Trump may have possibly ruined Jeff Sessions chance to enforce the laws of the nation. Especially after the firing of the temporary AG Sally Yates for refusing to enforce his selective religious ban. Notably, in a sick Machiavellian twist, Sessions asked during Yates’ confirmation a few years ago if she would resist if she felt if the president went above the law. I guess that was only for the last guy.
But in spite of the widespread resistance from the masses and electeds, the dropping poll numbers and the embarrassing results from the EO hastily closing the borders to this nation, Trump still doesn’t give a fuck. His conviction that the world is a mess justifies his decisions. What does it matter when people who went through the proper channels to live and work here get caught up in the anti-terror ringer? According to the President, the nation and the world is a mess and has bigger problems to solve, even though none of the nations on the Muslim ban has even attacked our country, and two of them are known allies where our military are training those nations’ armies, Somalia and Iraq.
This may be just a shock doctrine test to see how the nation’s laws and judges react to this mess that he created. President Trump wants to rule by chaos and disorder and it doesn’t matter what those on the street with the funny signs or what the democrat minority in the houses in DC say.
President Trump is just fucking with people. Plain and simple. It’s what power tripping, unscrupulous bosses have always done since the dawn of man. He is the boss of America and he decides who profits and and who gets to live here.
This is the new normal. I am sure President Trump doesn’t give a fuck what Lindsay Crouse thinks either.
The Situation Patio.
It’s a executive legislative document, not macaroni art.
Predator Developers and corporate welfare cheats, Jed and David Walentas/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/world/2017/01/24/trump-administration-pushes-lie-that-millions-of-illegal-immigrants-voted/smug-trump.jpg)
Dickfacemode. The expression of a man no longer in awe of his elected position. 
Impunity City 
