Antitrust: The Appropriate Pursuit of the Narcissists Who Create It.

Three quick quotes:

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Those who erase history are trying to repeat it.

First line is attributed to: George Santayana;

Second line: mine own, till proven otherwise.

Unregulated capitalism is feudalism; encouraged by, and for, narcissists.

Also: mine own, till proven otherwise.

Therefore, I approve of, and encourage: Lina Khan: FTC Chair;

Jonathan Kanter: DOJ: Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division.

Antitrust enforcement in the United States was first, and appropriately, pursued and discouraged by Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was part of the wealthy, prone to narcissism class, and he understood that his peers were largely incapable of self-control.

I applaud and support the continued the efforts of Ms. Khan and Mr. Kanter.

Accumulated Thoughts...

A grand jury should be empaneled to determine if 6 justices on the SCOTUS have supported an insurrection; should be indicted for said support.  If indicted, then Section 3 of the 14th Amendment should be imposed upon said justices.

DOJ needs to investigate any and all of the office holders (especially those who had asked 45 for a pardon) who had taken an oath required to hold their government office, and had had anything to do with anyone who participated in the insurrection of January 6th, 2021.  Indict and prosecute as needed.

The team that prepped the President for the debate did not understand the job. The debate was not about the facts on any subject.  The  debate was against a Gish galloping, pathological liar, who often can't string two coherent sentences together.  It wasn't about anything factual, like the last 3 plus years of the Biden administration.  The prep team should have been: Mehdi Hasan, Al Franken and John Fugelsang, because when agitated (45 is incredibly easy to agitate) 45 demonstrates the petulant 8 year old that he has always been.

Mehdi Hasan has explained debating in his book: Win Every Argument; The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking including a description of, "Gish galloping."  If you have ever presented in front of an important audience, and over prepared, then seized up while trying to determine what is most important, appropriate and in what order things should be presented, without the benefit of notes...  Bless your extraordinary keister.  However, if you're human as the rest of us, you might read Mr. Hasan's book.

Who is the alternative to Biden?  Who, amongst the folks saying Biden should step down, think that they can herd the cats (that are the Democratic party) behind an alternative?

The rich, orange menace supporters are aristocrat wannabes.  They need the grifter in chief to allow them to attain said powerful positions, because they can't  grift for themselves to a crowd that they can't stand to be amongst.  The wealthy aristocrat wannabes want every possible thing for themselves; know naught the meaning of enough.

Transportation's fuel consumption could be 30% of what is now; see also: FSHEV (Nissan's Note, e-power).  API's wealth and power has stymied adoption of said FSHEV (Full Series Hybrid Electric Vehicles) technology... Climate change could be far more under control than it is!

Check the records to see how many fission, nuclear power plants have been built on time and within original budget projections... To say naught of mining for, processing of and disposition of, spent, fuel rods; water usage and limited containment building lifespan...  Why would anyone pursue fission nuclear power?

Based on the SCOTUS decision about the question of Presidential immunity, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment now applies to 6 of the SCOTUS justices for participation in an insurrection against the government of the United States of America.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/mismatch-us-economy-perception-versus-reality-mcgeever-2024-06-26/   
“The gulf between America's downbeat view of the US economy, and it's general healthy well-being, could not be wider.”
“...Systematic bias in driving inaccurate perceptions about US economic performance, in the media, are (mostly) to blame.”

https://www.epi.org/publication/econ-performance-pres-admin/
“Summary: The economy performs much better during Democratic presidential administrations than during Republican ones.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html
The New York Times finally recognizes, publicly, that the orange menace is not fit for office (any office).

I don't care if Joe needs a recliner in the oval office; he'll still be a great President.  If Joe wants his last scheduled activity of the day to be at 8:00 pm, that's fine. Joe has one of the best home offices (office homes) available; Joe's available 24/7. If Joe feels that he is not working out he will probably step aside in favor of our VP, Kamala Harris. The next VP might be Hakeem Jeffries.  That would be the best thing we could do to the  right, wingnut (plural, expletive here).  

If anyone compares the 45 administration with Biden's first term and thinks they want a second term (complete with the Heritage Foundation's: Project 2025) of the orange turd, then you've earned the misery you helped to create in the Kingdom of America!

More to come...

Ideas for my campaign for TX House, district 20...

Stephen M. Wyman

Democratic Candidate for Texas House, District 20

(Andice, Cedar Park, Florence, Georgetown, Jarrell, Leander, Liberty Hill)

I support women’s access to and choice in all aspects of reproductive health care.

All of Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid's programs should be available to all eligible Texans, including 12-month postpartum Medicaid eligibility.

Addiction and mental health issues are, in fact, health problems and should be treated as such.

Public dollars are only for public schools.

Teachers and staff in our school systems should have professional, living wages.

Pre-K education should be available and affordable, free when needed, for all Texas children.

Kids’ meals should be available (free, as needed) at their school year-round.

Post secondary education should be affordable (free for Texans in state institutions).

The leading cause of death for children and adolescents should NOT be gun violence.

I oppose state spending for border militarization and anti-immigrant law enforcement (SB4).

I support science-based climate change mitigation, response and adaptation.

I support strategies and laws to encourage voter participation.

I oppose policies that lead to discrimination and persecution on the basis of race, ethnicity, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity.

Texas has a regressive tax system that should be brought into the real world, so that Texans can have the municipal, county and state services they deserve.

The electricity in Texas should be as simple and dependable as the flipping of a light switch.

Renewable energy sources should be encouraged.

Texas State Savings and Loans, Financial Institutions, can help make living indoors, in Texas, more affordable.

Suggested Reading: Reasons Why One Would Vote for Democrats...

Suggested reading:

On the Wealth of Nations (the Original, “Wealth of Nations,” Tome Explained and Analyzed with Wit, Wisdom and Brevity), by PJ O'Rourke, Grove Press, 2007.

Free Fall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, W.W. Norton and Company, 2010.

Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, by Thomas Sewell, Basic Books, 2011.

The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, by Thomas Frank, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co., Inc., 2008.

Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy From Trump's Revenge, by Miles Taylor, Simon and Schuster, 2024.

Capital in the 21^st Century, by Thomas Piketty, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017.

The New New Deal: the Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era, by Michael Grunwald, Simon and Schuster, 2012.

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.

The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023.

Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most destructive Industry on Earth, by Rachel Maddow, Crown Publishing, 2019.

The History of the Standard Oil Co., Two Volumes, by Ida M. Tarbell, Cosimo Classics Publishing, 2010; originally published in 1904.

A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of (Private) Financial Crises, by Richard Vague, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.

All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the (Private) Financial Crisis, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, Portfolio/Penguin, 2010.

Bull by the Horns: Fighting to Save Main Street From Wall Street and Wall Street From Itself, by Sheila Bair, Free Press, 2012.

How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World (Things That One Might Not Realize Are Working Till They Fail), by Deb Chachra, Riverhead Books, 2023.

Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box: How the Performance of Our Presidents Has Impacted Your Wallet (Your Wallet Does Better During a Democratic Administration), by Bob Deitrick and Lew Goldfarb, Advantage Media Group, 2012.

 

AI, and Other, "Fakes..."

Creating and publishing fictitious content (especially using AI technology) in any way, shape or form without a disclaimer identifying the use of said technology can be assumed to have been created and published with malicious intent, and should be subject to laws, courts and appropriate penalties.

Creating, and publishing, an image that bears any resemblance to an existing person(s), or write and publish text that uses the content from, or identity of, an existing individual(s) without a disclaimer identifying the work as fiction, and including notifications that consent was/wasn't attained, then the fiction can be considered to have been created and published with malicious intent; subject to appropriate force of law.

If a publication, of any sort, allows fictitious content of their own, or of others, creation to be made available for public consumption on their site, it may be assumed that said content is shared with malicious intent, and have legal consequences.

I suggest this, and any other carefully considered, regulation of the use of AI to be necessary, because computer/telecommunications technology is incredibly powerful and omnipresent in the world today. Said technology need not be intentionally malicious to be the cause of very bad consequences, but the results need be thoroughly reviewed to attain reasonable certainty, one way or the other; corrected, adjudicated, punished as needed.

Voluntary compliance with guidelines/regulation will not be sufficient.

Preventing the Return of the Grifter in Chief

In the run-up to the November elections somebody needs to cover, release a, "Cliff's Notes," style summary of the, "Project 2025," document.

Trump is a front man for ultra-conservatives and their reprehensible causes. 

 

These aren't the MAGAt mobs, they are rich, megalomaniacal, oligarch wannabes, and seriously disturbing right, wing-nut organizations like the Heritage Foundation and Moms for Liberty. They want to present agendas, and pull the strings in the next (should the worst happen) Orange Menace administration. They're really not competent at much of anything, or productive, because everything they have is procured for them by others; see also: 45^th administration, inheritance, under-compensated employees and infrastructure provided by government (e.g., Internet, roads, bridges, airports, seaports, public schools, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC), water, waste water, electricity provision and distribution, etc...). These are insecure, white people who want, only for themselves, everything they can beg, borrow or steal; know naught the meaning of enough.

Why do they need a front man; grifter?

Because they can't sell what folks don't need, want or understand to a reasonably large and gullible audience. Can't connive to the masses if you can't get their attention, because you basically can't stand to be around said masses.

Hence, the front man. A successful con artist that has amazed the authoritarian wannabes by not, yet, being held to account by the people and organizations that have eventually realized that they've been victims of the sting(s).

Bolstering the aristocrat pretenders' egos and operations are the crowds of incompetent, near do wells who want someone else to blame for their perceived lack of success in life. They are also white people easily convinced that the, “scary,” non-white folks, that comprise minority-majority, “done it.” This fear of, “different,” people drives their political and social preferences to the hard, wing-nut, right; well beyond conservative norms.

Right, wing-nuts didn't just happen yesterday, during the Obama administration or even during the (un)Civil War years. There have been hard right, wing-nut, self-loathing, misogynistic, self-centered, or otherwise damaged people, and their regressive causes, around forever.

The current generation of self-centered, authoritarian wannabes lacked a leader to put them into position behind the curtain, pretense to a wizard in a retrograde society. They latched onto a grifter who had successfully promoted himself, via multiple methods (oft prone to being illegal), into the appearance of wealth and power without being held to account; yet.

Trump is old, but he's still a useful idiot for Putin, Qpublicans and the wealthy aristocrats in waiting. Folks using titles like: federalist, textualist and originalist... Organizations with names like: Moms for Liberty, Heritage and Family Foundations need his grifting prowess. None of these efforts yielded a leader capable of the kind of successful, enormous scale, grift like the one who became the 45^th President of these United States of America.

If there is a second, Orange Menace term we will see the, “Project 2025,” text become reality... Orwell's, “1984,” made real.

This needs to become common knowledge so that the aforementioned horror story doesn't become reality.

Campaign Speech: TX House_20 in 2024

Good Afternoon. Good to see y'all.

Many of us here today were alive, if kinda young, when expanded voting and civil rights were encoded into law in the mid-1960s, same for when Roe v. Wade became legal precedent in the early 70s.

We gained a certain level of satisfaction and went on with our lives. Surely these things will not change.

Here we are, now... All those things have, in fact, changed, because too many of us didn't show up at the polls to make sure those things would not be changed.

There were, and still are, folks who stewed in resentment about those issues, and more, who have come out from under the rocks, where they'd festered for decades, when an African, American man was elected President of these United States; twice.

Time to restore, and stand with, an America that works for all Americans.

I'm campaigning for TX. House, district 20, this year. Population growth has shrunk the district down to western Williamson county.

I'm running against an incumbent who votes to send public money to private schools...

Public education for all is the key to success, for all.

Doesn't seem to know anything about Climate Change.

We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children. We must strive to leave everything better than we found it, for ourselves and all who will follow.

Shows no knowledge of the crisis created around women's health care issues. The attack on a woman's, maternal, health care is dangerous, fatally so for some.

A woman's ability to control all aspects of her own health care is an essential right.

Doesn't demonstrate knowledge about international borders, and throws 100s of millions, to billions, of Texas taxpayer's money at the work that the Constitution assigns to the federal government.

Legislation to improve the situation at the border was hashed out in a bi-partisan, US Senate committee, then trashed, because Republicans want to run on problems at the US border with Mexico. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) was rebuked by the Republican party of OK for his work on said committee...

The audacity!

No good deed goes unpunished.

Arizona's SB1070 in 2010... TX's SB4 in 2024...

This is what happens when insecure, white people, who know naught about, “love thy neighbor,” are reacting to something called minority/majority. I find legislation like this to be idiotic, embarrassing and wrong; needs to be repealed.

“I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”

Save America! Register to vote, check your registration and vote for Democrats for every office, in every election!

Democracy is in our hands!

If you don't believe that, you need to peruse the Heritage Foundation's, Project 2025...

Orwell's , 1984, realized.