My granddaughter is a suburban mom from outside Portland. Her husband is a police officer. She sent this account: 'I planned on going home early last night, so I wasn’t as prepared as usual. Generally I get pepper sprayed which is slightly different than tear gas and doesn’t irritate my eyes nearly as much. Last night for some reason I was one of the very few who could still see. Most people were pretty blinded, including J who is usually very physically tough that way. I led him to a wall and was able to “go back in” and lead at least 6 more people to a safe route out. It was wild. I grabbed J, dragged him around the corner, flushed out his eyes and then got to work on other people. Before the blinding amounts of gas went off (there was already a few canisters deployed but nothing like it was a couple minutes later where people weren’t even able to see) I caught a lady who almost fell over from the flash bang that went off right by us. I think she thought there had been a car crash, or explosion or something dangerous. I was steadying her and pointing over to it saying “It’s ok. You got this. That was just a flash bang. They are just like really loud cherry bombs we set off as kids. It’s ok, you’re safe. Look at it, see, it just smokes now! Let’s get upwind.” It was surreal to be the “seasoned” protester who was able to help. I really hope no more people get seriously hurt. I have never acted like I did last night. I’ve become every type of protester and have been frustrated night after night by their actions that I am even part of a lawsuit against Portland from a sh**ty interaction in June. Sh**ty enough I reached out to an atty after it happened. But I’ve NEVER been as mad as I was last night. I was standing on a barricade thing in the middle of a barrage of rubber bullets with tear gas and explosions all around me giving the double bird to an officer who was dressed all in camo. I was yelling “Suck my d**k from behind you little b**ch! You look like a weak a** coward hiding behind all your little protective gear and your big bad gun! That scope and suppressor doesn’t trick me you mother f***er! You fire that sh** at me from this range you’ll never work again mother fu**er! Get the f**k out of my town and get a real job like the rest of us. Stop s*cking off the Donald's t*ts! We can show you how to not bend over for him!” '

When you listed the federal agencies run by lobbists you forgot to mention the entire money system which is the operating system for all the rest. And this system has been run by lobbyists and special interests (pun intended) since back to the Roman Empire according to my understanding of David Graeber's work on the subject. When the operating system of accounting for/annotating of the economic activity of the populace is done with accounting units that are themselves a creation of and by and for the very special interest folk at the top, it makes little sense to say we must get billionaires and their money out of politics unless you are also calling for an entirely different way of doing this thing called money.

The thing is that the very way that we are doing money cannot stop creating instability, and it cannot stop enabling the creation of imperialist billionaires and all that goes with that. It simply is Not Possible that the way we are doing the thing called money can produce any different results. The system itself creates instability. It is built right into the structure of the system. So moral indignation will not effect change unless that indignation motivates people to get out of the insanity of the current way we do money and we envision a way to do accounting using a definition of money that is not authoritarian and imperialistic. There really is a simle way of looking at this thing called money that literally takes the power away from the special interests. Money is just an abstract representational device to keep track of something else - not itself!
Narayana Kocherlakota, former President of the Minneapolis Fed puts it in these words:
“My argument demonstrates the vacuity of the three standard explanations of the role of fiat money in an economy: money acts as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account....The traditional explanations for the presence of money in an economy are more descriptive of its functions than explanatory. The true explanation for money’s presence is that money is a record-keeping device.”
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr2231.pdf (pages 2-3)

Once we come to know that that is the role of money then lots of other stuff falls out. No magical imperial money creator. No interest on the creation of or fees for the use of the accounting unit. No 'precreation' of the accounting unit ahead of and apart from the economic activity that it is an abstract representation of.

The libertarian folk like to suggest that the market is what rules everything - but the market cannot even take its rightful place within human interactivity so long as the control over the creation of the abstract accounting unit is a separate function from all the rest of the economic activity and so long as the accounting unit is itself bought and sold as one of the commodities in that same market! THAT is an absurdity and lies at the heart of the way to address all this insanity.

We already know that the illegitimate claim of superiority of one class over another in feudal class based systems or caste systems is bogus. But we seem oblivious to the illegitimate superiority claims and ill-gotten gains in status when applying math acumen to abstract insanities like usury, fractional reserve money creation, increases from derivatives of make believe systems of “value” all created out of thin air!

Marc Gauvin of the MSTA puts it like this:
"All we can do is share knowledge and make it as easy as possible for as many as possible to understand how money cannot be both a record of value and a tradable commodity and why that legally invalidates current practices that are only assumed to be valid but are proven not to be.

We along with other leading experts such Naryana Kocherlakota Towsend et al have considered everything you discuss and more and have concluded that money's only technological role is that of a record-keeping device.
Our approach uses formal (decidable) semantic analysis, information theory and dynamic systems control and stability theory to arrive unequivocally at the same conclusion Kocherlokato does but adding what the record is of i.e. value.

What has never been done so far is to make the link between the fact of a complete lack of formal definition and specification of money, the "vacuousness" of common notions of money and universally stated legal requirements for validity of money contracts. See:

http://www.mrcenter.info/Doc/ConferencePapers/2015/MRC_2015_Gauvin_Meira_Final_Release_Amendement_for_Publication.pdf

Our purpose now is to make this common knowledge and focus on these facts before the current unconscionable transfer of the majority of key life support assets and infrastructure culminates and is made practically irreversible.

The idea being that once the deeds to the controlling shares of life support on the planet have been transferred via such contracts and under the hitherto unchallenged cursory assumption of their validity, then the legal argument to reverse them becomes practically irreversible because of the inability to disprove the presumption of having operated in good faith under said practices, that failed to be adequately proven invalid or even challenged at the time of their auspicious execution. All this being a systemic effect of the incongruence of the logic underlying money, irrespective of the wishes of any agents acting under its yoke."

Hallelujah!! deepspace is back. I really have missed your posts. Hopefully we’ll get to here from you more often. In any case, great to hear from you again!

Pssst! Whatabout evidently swallows modern-day American fascism hook, line, and sinker with myopic posts and one-sided links to the far, far right of Attila the Hun, defending the flagrantly unconstitutional and illegal tactics of the "Brownshirts" of the Department of Homeland Security, which borrowed its title from the German concept of "der heimatland," cited extensively by the Nazis to inspire a white (Aryan) national identity among its citizens.

• UN rights chief ‘appalled’ by US border detention conditions, says holding migrant children may violate international law

• 'Crimes Against Humanity': Abuses Persist at Immigrant Detention Centers as DHS Hands Out 'Waivers' to Contractors

• Abolish ICE! Fighting for Humanity over Profit in Immigration Policy

• ICE: The Evil and Ugly American; History Repeats Itself

• ICE: The making of an American Gestapo

• Abolish ICE: the New Call to Destroy ICE’s Destructive Deportation Force

"[...] first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." -- Matthew 7: 5 -KJV

This talk about Senators trying to push legislation, and Congress passing legislation is well and good, however the Senate will not pass any legislation that restricts Trump, now will Trump sign it. So it is an exercise in futility, great PR I suppose for elections, but an exercise in futility none the less.

It seems to me that the only answer is for the Democratic governors to mobilize the National Guard and have them arrest these invaders. I don't buy the excuse that they don't have the authority. These camoflagued thugs are invaders, breaking the law, they weren't invited in and they are not authorized by any Federal law. Perhaps they can guard federal buildings, but when they step one foot over federal property they are criminals.

Mayors can not count on their cops, nor the county sheriff, as those organizations are compromised (Oath keepers) and are as fascist as the Trump administration.

The only option then is the National Guard, however that does raise an issue of Trump mobilizing the National Guard. A problem occurs because it places the National Guard in the position of arresting federal "law enforcement". I am not a lawyer or constitutional authority, and would like to know all of the ramifications .

My question is why don't the mayors fire the police and cut the contract with the police unions, after all the unions that have prevailed on Trump to invade the cities have voided their contract, if any, with the city.

TRUMPISM TRUMPS THE

CONSTITUTION

And now it's Springtime for Trumpy and the GOP... Goose steps are the latest steps you'll see.. Republicans are marching at a faster pace... look out here comes the Master Race...

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I live in western Montana where we have an abundance of wildlife. In 2012, one of our neighbors told me about a young mountain lion that walked through the middle of their front yard at 2:30 pm. Caught on their surveillance camera. I decided then to trade my .22 rifle for a larger gun. I always like the lever action rifles so I purchased a 45/70 Marlin. Not only was it made in the US but it also shot the caliber available 2 centuries ago just before 1900. I figured if Trump ever became president and took our country back to the 1880's, I would be ready to hunt big game. It looks like we are headed that way right now.

"Make America Hate Again", though the best bumper sticker I ever saw on this topic was:

"Be Pro-Life. Don't Have Sex With Republicans."

Knowing that Trump is the definitive con man we should consider that he is bluffing. What is the size of his secret police force? Does he only have sufficient numbers to control a city the size of Portland? How are these troops recruited and must they swear allegiance to Trump? If so I would hope it would make his recruiting more difficult to the point that we should consider also knowing if they are in fact federal troops of any type and not mercenaries. Because of the numbers I find it difficult to believe he could do what he is threatening to do to all the "liberal cities" which goes to the point that the only thing he hopes to accomplish is a race riot.