SOCIAL MEDIA MADNESS

What in the world have we created?

I love technology. It makes life easier and helps people accomplish more in less time. Social media, however, may not be good for everyone. The internet was designed to be a tamper-proof means of communication, capable of surviving wars and natural disasters, and it works. Even though Ian the hurricane killed the power for days in our Florida home, when the electricity powered back up all our emails, tweets, posts and pontifications were there waiting for us.

Once the internet was fully in place, the computer geeks morphed from specialized complexities tantamount to morse code and ham radio to a very usable platform for the everyday letters and graphics of technically unsophisticated users. E-mail was all we really needed, but the ability of one to broadcast their ideas to many soon followed. Once the world wide web was unveiled, we humans found thousands of ways to use it. One of the big drivers during the early days of the web was pornography. You see, there is always a light and dark side to every technology, think Manhattan Project. Yes, the invention of the atomic bomb ended a war but also unleashed the fear and threat of human annihilation.

In the beginning, internet “bulletin boards” connected users. Next, social media became a slicked up and simplified outgrowth of that technology, and once some people became infused with its ego, narcissism and psychological reinforcements, however, the tech became a drug. Sure, Google wasn’t social media, but it delivered a straightforward way to locate specifics in the vastness of internet information. Forty years ago, I said the internet provided two basic needs, finding things and selling things. Not much has changed.

One of the menacing aspects of platforms like Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the rest is the instant gratification of launching whatever one has to say onto the world wide web. For the most part, that thrill is free to anyone in any country that hasn’t blocked the internet from its people. I misused the privilege of being a Tweeter and am now banned for life from that one. I have been put in Facebook jail more than once, and still don’t fully understand why they even care about anything I said. I must have pissed off another user, thus leading to my cancellation. Do I care? Well, yes, because I have always used social media less for socializing and more for promoting my books, web sites and opinions.

Operatives within Russia’s government eventually plowed their way into the threads and thoughts of US voters. These bots and bad guys demonized Hillary Clinton and got Donald Trump elected. I don’t have the desire, time or energy to debate this truth with you. If you don’t believe what I’ve just said then you are ill-informed, and if you are continuing the worship of the fat, false, orange prophet, you are a certified asshole.

Over time, social media companies became less communication platforms and more “publishers.” Under pressure from overreaching government goons and their own users, they began to censor their users. Oh, certainly for good reasons.

The platforms analyzed the traffic and figured out which were foreign influencer bots and who were pure humans. Then they decided to point out what they believed to be misinformation and turned down the demonic disinformation campaigns. Sadly, they were too late most of the time. Even after the social media platforms claimed to have “fixed things,” we still had mass shooters live streaming their deadly deeds. The social media companies were simply too big and stuffed with too much data, rendering them incapable of thwarting this activity. Most of the Facebook and Twitter accounts of the mass shooter lunatics are taken down only after their crimes have been committed, which is certainly not pro-active.

Now, we have one of the richest guys in the world, with a hundred- million followers on Twitter deciding that “he and he alone” can fix what ails Twitter. To achieve this, he bought the company for $44 billion. Some experts say the day he took over Twitter Elon Musk lost $30 billion, yet Twitter is worth only $10 billion, and there aren’t enough people to fire or lay off to make a difference in Musk’s financial fiasco.

Lord Acton was the first person to say, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and Elon Musk, like many humans having too much success, money and power, now believes his shit doesn’t stink. Well, he’s not always right, and what took place three days after his purchase of Twitter proves it.

Musk re-Tweeted a right-wing newspaper that claimed Paul Pelosi wasn’t attacked by a right-wing radical but received his skull fracture from a gay lover he brought home from a bar. Musk has since deleted that tweet, but really, it proves that without a firm, final filter Elon Musk will become Twitter’s number one problem. Ironically, his action removed any aura of him being an “arbiter of truth,” and if he wants Twitter to be a public forum of free and truthful speech, he should be banned from the platform immediately.

Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t keep them from drawing graffiti on a bathroom wall. Yes, of course, “For a good time, call Elon,” but don’t hold your breath. He won’t answer your letters, take your calls or respond to any “common man.” I know, I’ve written him. Crickets…

It may sound like sour grapes because I was banned, but I believe that within three years Twitter will be gone. When Musk opens up the platform to all those exiled souls who had been sent away, we will all blow our wads telling him he’s full of shit. How will he manage it when he’s the target? He will ban us again. And as the advertisers leave because Elon allowed Trump to return to Twitter to tell us how fucked up the 2020 election was and how great he is, who will finance that overhead? I surely won’t.

This headline arrived even before the body cooled, “Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification.” I have no idea what that means, but if Elon thinks I will spend more than $200 a year for him to feel comfortable that I am not a bot, well, he can go jump in a river. Elon Musk is nothing but a rich-Republican, Putin-apologist. He doesn’t care about free speech, democracy or anyone other than himself. It’s all madness, and when he wakes up from his high-power stupor and tries to find some sucker to buy a depleted, demonic, dead bird, I wish him luck. Perhaps he needs to take a shut the fuck up pill and find ways to make better cars and rockets.

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WE ARE LEMMINGS, HEAR US ROAR!

Trump’s Militia of Miscreants Failed Their Mission

Being “for something” doesn’t necessarily have an embedded notion of “being against” something else, but most folks tend to make things binary. Paired concepts such as right/wrong, yes/no, good/bad and start/finish help people see a big picture which often makes them feel safe. A world where things are either black or white might make one secure in their opinions, but life is far too complex for such simple choices. Some issues have so many shadings and gradations that reflective thought is needed to break the myopic spell.

While writing today’s blog, I found this article by Spencer Greenburg. He’s a software developer and think-tank type of guy who also has done some Ted Talks. In his article, Greenburg discusses nuanced thinking in detail. Mr. Greenburg’s post points out three types of dichotomies: 1. The Truth Binary, 2. The Goodness Binary and, 3. The Identification Binary.

The Truth Binary usually begins with someone saying, “I believe….” followed by their statement of “fact,” which is actually their opinion which could be either correct or incorrect.

The Goodness Binary is a simple declaration, such as saying Donald Trump is good or he’s bad. There’s no room for even the slightest objective reasoning as in, “Well, he did good things.” But, what does that mean? It’s just a blunt statement devoid of nuance and any wiggle room.

Then there’s the Identification Binary, in which an opinion is based on membership in a class. It’s the reason why many political candidates don’t declare a party affiliation on their posters. A voter learning of a candidate’s class affiliation might then judge them according to the good/bad lens through which they view the class, not the candidate.

I find it debilitating to engage with people who don’t fully understand words and their shades of meaning. When speaking with a neighbor, I called Trump a racist. My neighbor simply replied, “No, he’s not.” I took a deep breath and then backed out of the discussion. My neighbor holds membership in a class that cannot contemplate the outgoing president doing anything wrong. There was also another stumbling block; I didn’t trust the man’s definition of racism. How can two people possibly debate a subject without agreement on the terms? Teaching someone a nuanced concept of racism would take far too long in a casual conversation.

I am intrigued by the endless discourse of legal minds tapped to explain to the masses whether Donald John Trump is guilty, or not, of sedition by inciting the riot on Capitol Hill. The idea that anyone could possibly speak to the intent of another involves so much nuanced interpretation it seems silly to waste any breath on it. There are times when binary logic can’t help. For example, consider the question of why a person who says he is a “law and order” president urges people to break the law. Trump spoke the words that incited his rabid followers to riot, ending in the deaths of five people. How can this be right? Good/bad and right/wrong are binary choices, but there are times when only complex facts can discern a truthful reality.

The president asked his sycophants to come. He addressed them, he pumped them up and then he urged them on to the Capitol, where bad things happened. Some say the rioters were egged on by Antifa members who had infiltrated the mob. Well, that declaration fails nuanced analysis; it’s just not true. How do I know this? Because the insurgents confessed on TV who they supported and why they committed their crimes.

The Trump Army that tried to take Capitol Hill miserably failed their mission, not because the police and guards eventually pushed them away but because their assignment was to stop the vote count. That didn’t happen. After taking a safety break, Congress roared back and did exactly what the mob tried to prevent them from doing. The insurgents were disappointed by Trump’s video saying their actions were wrong, and when Trump realized his words hurt the little lemmings he regretted recording his second video on the matter. That reveals his intent.

We saw the lemmings in action. They disrupted the government for a few hours, caused millions of dollars of damage and created a situation that ended in the deaths of five people. There’s no nuance, and the lemmings’ binary choice may net some of them five-plus years of jail time. The fat guy who endorsed and encouraged their illegal actions won’t be around to pardon them, nor should they be pardoned. They need to be punished. Yes, punish/pardon is a binary choice, but I’ve got some support for my opinion.

Mobs are bad. Not only do I believe this, but the pointed statement fits into the binary classifications of Truth, Goodness and Identification. Mobs generally believe and act with a singular brain driving them. That’s why they can build a pyramid (Egypt), kill the leader of a church (Joseph Smith) or break through guards (last week on Capitol Hill). When the one brain is wrong then the whole group is wrong, and shit inevitably happens. No one can argue against death being bad, especially those who have lost their lives and voices. I am speaking for them today.

It’s impossible for the lemmings to think clearly because of the grand brainwashing by Donald Trump with his endless lies and misinformation. The miniature misguided creatures don’t have the intellectual capacity for discernment. They “know” only what the man has told them. They haven’t taken the time to see the multiple sides of the issues that drive them because either they can’t, or they don’t want to. They live in a class of ignorance and disregard.

The bell rang and the class of 2020 left the school, but with no diplomas. The American carnage that Donald John Trump talked about during his early days in office has been realized in his miserable waning days. Rather than trying to please this base or that base, it’s time for us to figure out America’s true needs and then work together with laser focus to bring them into reality. The age, experience and wisdom of an older president is essential to truly make America great again. I’m ready for that, and so is Joe!

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VOTING IN AMERICA

Trump’s Greatest Challenge & Flaw

Statistics provide a clear picture of who we are as a people. Many Americans have taken the right of voting for granted. In 2016, 250,056,000 Americans voted, which was only 55.5% of eligible voters. That’s a strange statistic for a country where more than a million people have fought and died to protect the right to vote. Why do so many not take that privilege seriously?

In 1964, only six percent of African Americans voted, but after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 more Black people voted. By 1969, 59 percent of African Americans voted. According to the Pew Research Center, the Black voter turnout rate in the presidential election of 2016 declined for the first time in twenty years, falling to 59.6% after reaching a record-high of 66.6% in 2012. That seven percent decline from the previous election is the largest on record for Blacks. One could conclude that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump were attractive to those voters, or perhaps African Americans felt they had a sure win with Obama in the race.

Another statistic that cracks right between the eyes is 38% of those in Congress are millionaires. Startlingly, that’s not much different from the first years of the American government. The flatly stated theory goes like this; let the rich, white, planter-plantation owner class protect their business interests, and everyone else will be fine. Sadly, there’s not much difference today.

While Trump stirs up dust about Twitter and Facebook taking down his lies and misinformation they feel will hurt their subscribers, more people are dying of COVID-19 infections. While Trump is passing along stupid QAnon conspiracy theories and lies, there are people in Georgia and other states waiting eight hours in sprawling, hot lines to vote. How can any of us believe we are a great country when one of our political parties works so hard at voter suppression? They openly state their belief that when fewer people vote they do better. What is the difference between Republican actions to suppress voting and ballot burning in a third-world country after all the citizens have voted? Any US citizen involved in vote suppression, regardless of their place in society, should at least be charged with voter intimidation.

Trump sees the electorate through the filter of his belief that the American public will believe whatever he tells them. Remember, he said he could shoot someone in the middle of New York’s Fifth Avenue and wouldn’t lose any supporters. Maybe Trump feels he must react to some of the “fake news” that has been published about him. But in reality, this guy has no credibility pushing back because he’s stuck in a ad hominem loop. He truly believes all negatives about him are untrue, therefore, even when the other guys tell almost truths about him, no one on the Democratic side believes him. He’s the boy who cried wolf so much, no one is really listening anymore.

Probably emboldened by Trump’s successful fight with COVID, the West Wing is now pushing the B.S. that “everyone is going to get the virus.” It’s the same “herd immunity” idea Dr. Atlas dumped into Donald’s defective brain months ago. Our President now says, “See, it’s not that bad. Get back to work and reelect me.” What about losing the lives of two million people? “We are just going to have to live with it.” To a young person, the fact that they are still living is an invitation to party recklessly.

The flaw in Trump’s thinking is that people thoughtlessly do what he says. All his supporters shouting and screaming arm to arm at his rallies won’t get sick and die, but maybe some of them will come to their senses when they or a loved one starts to violently cough while gasping for air. Each false step, each tragic error, forces another crack in Trump’s armor.

The reality Trump must now confront is the wave of voters who are NOT going to stay at home. We already know that more than 15 million people have voted, and more than 60% of all mail in ballots were cast by Democrats. Trump made so many amateur mistakes as an incumbent. He could have embraced mask wearing from the beginning and air dropped millions of MAGA masks into swing states. It’s too late now. He politically over-positioned mask-wearing and the result could be many of his supporters too sick to vote.

Another junior achievement Trump ploy was getting his donor-lover-boy Louis DeJoy to disrupt the United States Postal Service in an attempt to sabotage mail in voting efforts. The overweight, orange pumpkin did this while fomenting distrust by saying the process of mail in ballots is ripe with fraud. If true, why did he make no effort to fix the problem? He is the most impotent president of all time if he can’t stop a pervasive fraud.

It’s impossible to apply logic to the actions of Trump and his grifter-enablers in Congress. They are all broke-dick cult followers and failures as patriots and people. It takes a whole nation to be a whole nation, and despite Trump’s position of needing walls to have a nation, what we truly need are voters to save our democracy. As many as legally possible. Maybe I am naïve or over-optimistic, but I believe the 2020 election turnout will be larger than ever. After the election, I want to start a campaign against the hypocrites who have too much power over us. I will be writing letters to suppress not only their voices but their Congressional votes.

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Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs: If you only read one chapter of this book, try “Take a Knee for America” and think about our never-ending conflicts between minorities and the police. I’m not asking you to take a stand but having a deep and honest conversation about why some people think the way they do would be productive. This is a book for the moment which seeks to start a conservation about peace. And if you are worried about social media, you really should check out the chapter called “Social Media Menace.”

Get the Kindle Version HERE. Or order your paperback edition HERE.

LET’S TALK ABOUT TWITTER

Separate Policies & Rules for Donald Trump

Back in the good old pre-internet days, we had this thing called a “chain letter.” The concept was simple. One person would write a letter and send it to a group of others. Every recipient was requested to send a copy of the letter to a specific number of other people. This was an early exercise in “going viral.” The “chain” theoretically could have created an exponentially growing pyramid, and the concept was exploited by get-rich-quick scams. Chain letters were used by low-tech social groups that the internet eventually killed.

In the early 1970s, we had a lot of social media starts and stops from Bulletin Board Systems (BBS), but the biggest leap came when AOL introduced millions to ICQ in 1997. They bought the patent from an Israeli company named Mirabilis, which had Yair Goldfinger as a founder. Yes, true. The name ICQ was a sound-play on the phrase, “I Seek You.” This revolutionary app allowed young users to instantly communicate via typing with their friends online. Those teenagers are now in their mid-thirties and ICQ was their introduction to social media, which they never stopped using.

I studied and deployed social media to promote my comedy web site, books and blog. I have also advertised on Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes very successfully, other times, “Meh!” The power of targeting people by their interests, posts or political viewpoints has made social media companies billions of dollars. For example, last year Facebook made $70.7 billion, YouTube clocked in with $15.1 billion, and records show that Twitter earned $3.46 billion in 2019. So, they are more than social; they are rich.

That brings us to Donald Trump. In 2009, Trump created @realDonaldTrump on Twitter to promote his brand and TV show, and he has been tweeting ever since. According to the blog, TweetBinder, since 2009 Donald Trump has shared over 42,000 original tweets. With an estimated 80 million followers now, Trump uses his personal twitter account as the official mouthpiece of his presidential administration, along with various personal thoughts, complaints, bitch fests and brain farts. Not all of his 80 million followers love him. News media, political operatives and members of Congress track his tweets just to keep up with the man’s outrageous and questionable words. I won’t miss him when he’s gone from all social media. I truly believe Trump is addicted to Twitter.

Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams created Twitter in 2006. The service grew rapidly, and by 2012 they had more than 100 million users. The original name was “twttr,” and when the service began each tweet was limited to 140 characters. Later, the limit was expanded to 280 characters. Their bird logo and the spelling out of the name Twitter can be seen everywhere, which was one of the main reasons I signed up. The service has 262 million international users with 42% of their users living in the US.

When I jumped on the bird, I was the VP of Marketing for an international software company, which had more than fifty web sites and services and a full complement of social media pages to promote our products and services. Sure, I asked our lawyers to read all the EULA’s (End User License Agreements), but, like most of us I clicked the [Accept] button without reading the rules. My company utilized multiple sites, accounts and pages for each social media platform. Not only were these sites in different languages, but we needed to research which approaches worked best in the various world markets where we operated. This is not uncommon, but I guess it’s more important to the providers than I thought.

In the early social media days, we got away with many things because the platforms didn’t catch us. They were too busy counting their money. Like many of us, I have been on edge during the global pandemic. I’ve lashed out online at people who were making ridiculous statements, presenting lies and aiding Donald Trump in his supreme stupidity. I have been angrier than ever because people I knew were dying from this terrible coronavirus and some of the things I posted were demented, derogatory and dangerous.

Yes, I said some terrible things to and about the new White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, after she went on Fox News and said the virus was a hoax created by Democrats to hurt Donald Trump. While people were dying, she was creating a false narrative to protect fat boy. My tweets screamed at her as she was working in her new job for the President. Right after that, I was suspended from Twitter, and I appealed.

Twitter denied my appeal and banned me for life. They sent me a letter that outlined what they described as “severe violations of their polices and platform manipulation rules.” They claimed I was “artificially amplifying or disrupting conversations using multiple accounts.” Guilty! They claimed I was operating “multiple accounts that interacted with one another in order to inflate or manipulate the prominence of specific Tweets or accounts.” Guilty! Then, they closed the coffin with this sentence, “Please do not reply to this message as this email address is not monitored.” They closed all my accounts and deleted all my content. WTF?

You might be asking, why do I care? Well, I just want to be treated the same as the President of the United States. He employs many accounts, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS being two examples, and he uses many press room accounts to promote his maniacal messaging on the platform. Of course, he’s also in violation of posting messages that promote violent actions — like threatening an entire country with nuclear annihilation — but they look the other way and, under the law, they cannot delete his posts and he cannot block any user from seeing his tweets. They have officially said they will not take down Trump’s tweets accusing MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murder, even though they know it’s a lie. Trump cannot be censored, but I can.

I openly admit I have also said some bad things about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and some of the ridiculous policies implemented at his company. Their selective censorship seemed to change right after Mr. Dorsey met with Trump in the Oval Office, but I cannot say that on Twitter, only Facebook. Dorsey is not a worthy gatekeeper and he cannot justify his actions.

If I had a big money pouch I would sue Twitter and make this an issue, but any solution would mean Twitter would have to stop their censorship regarding what can be posted and what is verboten. Pure freedom of speech would also protect neo-Nazis and anarchists. Not a good solution. Twitter claim they are not a publisher; they are only a service or platform, yet I was not in control of my account. They claim they aren’t the writer, just the printer, yet they decide what the ink can print. Doublespeak at its finest!

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have the same problem. When protesters in Michigan were waving Nazi flags and holding signs with terrible World War II death camp slogans, I went ballistic and wrote a blog post to condemn them. My post and link to the story were taken off Facebook because I attached a photo of the protestor’s appalling sign to my post. They claimed this was offensive and in violation of their polices on spreading hate. I wasn’t promoting hate; I was pointing out the hate so people could see it for themselves.

So, here is just another failure of algorithms that hold too much power over people. Software code cannot comprehend subtle nuances and meanings and that makes it exceedingly difficult to resolve disputers or ask for clarification.

This is not Donald Trump’s fault, but he is certainly part of the problem, a large, unmovable part. I do believe that when Trump is no longer President, all those official Twitter accounts will remain at the White House. And when Trump reverts to being a private citizen, we can complain about how he uses his account. Maybe then, he will be held to the standards. Until then, I am shooting the bird.

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TWITTER IS THE PROBLEM

Trump Constantly Violates Twitter Policies

The Twitter Rules are clear. “Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”

Those are nice marketing words, but let’s look more deeply inside the policies to get the specifics.

Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.

Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism.

Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.

Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.

I was once banned from Twitter for 12 hours because I called Lindsey Graham a “political whore.” I was saying that the Senator from South Carolina was politically motivated in his actions and is a person who is willing to do anything to achieve a particular goal (Trump’s attention.) I took my spanking like a man and jumped back on the twitter wagon after I served my 12-hour sentence, but what about Trump?

Let’s look at this tweet from the Commander in Chief of the United States of America, “Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!”

That is clearly a threat of violence against a group of people. It’s obviously a glorification of violence and a promise to hit specific targets within a country. Does Trump get a pass because he’s president? Yes, and it has been that way since the beginning.

Everyone in the world knows that the United States Department of Defense has weapons of mass destruction at its fingertips, and there is no doubt that Iran and their leaders know that they are under-matched by our destructive force. So, in a very definite way, Donald J. Trump through his Twitter account @realDonaldTrump is bullying a whole nation. What does Twitter say about that?

“People are allowed to post content, including potentially inflammatory content, as long as they’re not violating the Twitter Rules. It’s important to know that Twitter does not screen content or remove potentially offensive content.

As a policy, we do not mediate content or intervene in disputes between users. However, targeted abuse or harassment may constitute a violation of the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service. If you are a victim of targeted abuse or harassment, read more about online abuse.”

So, let’s see if I have this right. One may post inflammatory content if they are not in violation of the rules. Huh? Twitter admits they don’t screen content or remove offensive matter. Huh? If you violate the rules someone must turn you in, otherwise Twitter would never know. Gee, that means that someone who likes Lindsey Graham must have complained about my tweet.

Why don’t we all start complaining about Trump’s tweets? Could one person take down the President’s Twitter account? Unlikely, unless that person is Jack Dorsey, the head man at Twitter, who I believe is a total self-serving goofball. Can I call him that on Twitter?

Apparently, the president and his cohorts are afforded a special place at Twitter. They can threaten and bully companies, organizations, parties and individuals without any scrutiny, oversight or actions. The blood is now on Jack Dorsey’s hands and the hands of all the other rich kids who created social media. Sadly, there is no judgment day as the almighty dollar drives your ethics, morals and policies. If Twitter was to close Trump’s account, that would very likely end their business. How did they become so powerful? Surely, they are the problem, not the person issuing threats on their platform.

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SERIOUS TRUMP – GOOFY DONALD

Can We Have the Serious One?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post was on Meet The Press this week (7-9-2017) using the term “Teleprompter Trump.” She was describing the person who reads someone else’s words and gets better grades for being presidential than the man known as “Twitter Trump.” And may I suggest a third person inside the human Cheeto? How about the “Impromptu Trump?” This persona appears when Trump goes on camera to make a point that everyone else in his administration has been making for the previous 24-hours, except he says something completely different than they did!

With our multi-personality President, we must divert the different streams of verbiage into the appropriate buckets. When POTUS spoke last week in Poland, we heard from Teleprompter Trump. In that speech we heard this, “We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran, and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and the defense of civilization itself.”

We live in a sound-bite/headline word. Out of the speech in Warsaw came the line about whether the west has the will to survive, while the warning to Russia was buried in the rest of the lecture. The big speech was a few days before Trump and Tillerson met with Putin and Kislyak. And this meeting, produced more controversy.

Kislyak and Putin claimed in their press briefings at the G20 that, indeed, Trump brought up cyber meddling in our election. They also said that Trump had accepted Putin’s denial. Trump did not have a press briefing, therefore the story got out in front of him.

The administration thought Trump’s Tweet would soften the astonishment of those who thought he left the Russians off the hook. Trump wrote, “Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.”

Donald Trump has said that it’s easy to be a critic. I, for one, don’t have to try very hard to muster up some serious criticism about things that Twitter Trump types. But really, are we going to get together with the fox and talk about security at the hen house? Will dinner be served?

As Air Force One made its way back to Washington, the story broke in the New York Times that Donald, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer who offered “information” on Hillary Clinton. This meeting occurred right after the Donald won the Republican nomination.

As the weekend progressed, more and more “adjustments” were made to the story. Finally, we received the official word that, yes, the meeting took place, but the nominee, Donald Trump, was not at the meeting and knew nothing about it. Kushner and Manafort were working for the campaign at that time.

While the super hawks of the Senate, Lyndsey Graham and John McCain, were on the Sunday talk shows making fun of the suggestion of a cyber security unit with Russia, it wasn’t long before the great Orange leader was taking back his own words on Twitter: “The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can, & did!” (7-9-2017)

The big question is what would Teleprompter Trump say about this? We hardly ever get to see Impromptu Trump, so we probably won’t get to confront that personality on this issue. But, for sure, if Donald J. Trump was in front of cameras and asked about this he would start to defend himself and then make a quick turn to talk about the ceasefire that is taking place in an area of the least problematic in Syria. But then, Twitter Trump drives the narrative and thus action plan of this White House.

May I point out that what was once known as Multiple Personality Disorder is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder? It’s a condition under which a person’s identity is fragmented into two or more distinct personality states. It’s said that people with this rare condition were often victims of severe abuse. Maybe the metal in the silver-spoon in Donald’s mouth leeched into his tiny brain when he was young. Dissociative Identity Disorder is D.I.D., as in “Did I say that?”

Those who lie and exaggerate are often forced to retract, restate and reform the things they said. With Trump’s tribe of surrogates on-call to course correct Our President’s words, one could honestly ask whether Donald Trump has any talent for clarity. In fact, he continuously and clearly steps on his own proclamations. How can this be good for America?

Trump can restate his mantra of “No Connection, No Collusion” all he wants, but the intent of getting information on Clinton was the reason for the meeting with the Russian lawyer. Don, Jr. threw himself under the bus to protect the old man and now we have an admission of the desire for dirt, thus the first step toward collusion.

Donald Trump should think about negotiating a cease-fire with the free press by giving them some real facts. Slowly, the conflict between Teleprompter Trump, Twitter Trump and Impromptu Trump will continue to plague this administration’s ability to create a positive presidential presence for the majority of Americans; you know, the Popular Vote.

Editor’s Note: We borrowed the “Cheeto” moniker from SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR singer Corey Taylor from his book: “America 51: A Probe Into The Realities That Are Hiding Inside ‘The Greatest Country In The World'”

THE CYBER BULLY-IN-CHIEF

Trump: Unhappy in His Own Skin

Donald Trump has once again demonstrated his thin skin and relentless mean streak. In a morning tweet, the President of the United States decided to do a silly immature, cruel and misogynistic post deriding MSNBC morning host Mika Brzezinski.

The tweet read as follows:

“I heard poorly rated @Morning Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

Now, I could have simply chalked it up to his M.O. and how Trump shows us his true colors through Twitter, but there is a problem here that is not going to go away. There is no respect for the office of the President of the United States with Trump and all his men and women.

Melania Trump, the first lady of this country, through a spokesperson said, “When her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.” I know that English is not Melania’s first language and I hope we didn’t miss anything in translation, but I have to say, there goes that whole bullshit concept of her being the titular head of some anti-cyber bullying campaign. Now, zero credibility.

If that was not bad enough, the protectors of the drunk uncle president were out in full force today. Sarah Huckabee Sanders commented, “I don’t think that the president’s ever been someone who gets attack and doesn’t push back. There have been an outrageous number of personal attacks, not just to him, but to frankly everyone around him. This is a president who fights fire with fire. And certainly, will not be allowed to be bullied by a liberal media and the liberal elites within the media or Hollywood or anywhere else.”

I’m not sure that the president of a country with a 1^st Amendment can allow or disallow what others say about him. We have now seen the real enemy of the state and they are, indeed, those who work for the state. We are all getting burned by Trump’s fire and disregard for human beings.

The people around our president are soulless. They lie and disregard common decency to show their love for this power-hungry tyrant, Donald J. Trump. How do they sleep at night?

Whether you like Joe Scarborough or Mika or not, you have to consider that the imagery battles between the free press and the oppressive regime of Trump are now, in fact, real. The media, be it liberal, conservative, or far right, has a duty to find facts, write stories, conduct broadcasts and inform the American people.

Some talk show hosts do live in glass houses, but this president doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Those who support his abuse of power will be tried not only in the court of public opinion, but perhaps even called to testify in real court about whether they were instructed to lie to the American people. If lying to the citizens is not an impeachable offense, then what is?

Twitter, Terrorism and Timing

Trump Shows His Trigger Finger

Imagine if the President of the United States was addicted to crack cocaine. All the responsible parties would be meeting to work on an intervention before he would either hurt himself, or hurt other people.

In this case, the social media platform Twitter has given Donald Trump the love that he maybe hasn’t been able to get in real life. The instantaneous high from his tweet “fans” is the drug he needs every day. The first thing those who care would attempt is separating the addicted from their drug.

To date, Donald Trump has tweeted more than 35,000 messages to his 31.8 million followers. To put that in perspective, if we assume they are all truly “fans,” that is only 10.2% of the population of the country. And we now know that besides the thousands of bots that have electronically attached themselves to the Donald wagon, people who actually hate him also follow him to see what the great one will tweet next. Just numbers.

Social media platforms are designed for a generation of people who are seeking instant gratification and the reward of believing that people like them. These narcissistic platforms reinforce viewpoints by showing a member only those things the service’s algorithm thinks are compatible with their likes, dislikes and responses. So, Trump only sees what he wants to see, just like a twelve-year-old middle schooler.

If the President used Twitter strategically to dispense his views on issues and to help explain the why behind some of his policies, one could argue that it wasn’t an addiction, but rather a tool in his multi-media box. At 35,000 tweets, however, we have a problem.

And we saw what happened when his reading comprehension didn’t sync up with the power of the presidential tweet when he attacked the Mayor of London. And we see him declare an incident as a terror attack, even before the smoke clears. His irresponsible actions move our country closer to the brink of a possible disaster.

His addiction, as he rightly says, doesn’t have the mainstream media filter and, in fact, has no filter whatsoever. The account @RealDonaldTrump has no official connection to the government and is a direct link to the brain of the President. And his tweeting late at night and early in the morning just might be downfall of this “great” man.

We saw the #Covfefe moment and his quick to the trigger to take credit for the Arab states declaration of Qatar blockade, when some believe the whole affair was motivated by a Russian hack of their news service; a fact that Mr. Know-It-All could have learned from his own intelligence services. By the way, the United States of America has a very important Air Force base in Qatar, a good reason to do your research before you broadcast your thoughts on the matter.

And then there is the matter of Trump’s “TRAVEL BAN” that the Supreme Court is considering. Why would the central figure in the case be on social media putting down his Justice Department and the ban itself? This lack of maturity is something we would reference to a person fifty-years younger.

The only way to deal with this kind of addiction is to take the phone away and send the boy to his room. If there was a legal way to take Trump’s Twitter account away, I would surely sign on to that law suit. As I have stated on these pages previously, a tweet is a legal document. A legal document with all the weight of something the President has signed or decreed.

Someone has to act on this issue, or we should remove the man from office.

Paranoia Strikes Deep, Into Your Life It Will Creep*

Trump Sees Boogie Man in Every Shadow

Houston, we have a problem. New York, we have a problem. Chicago, we have a problem. You get the picture. Donald Trump has decreed that his personal myopia and deep seeded need to live in alternate universes and concocted conspiracies will have a great effect on the way his United States of America will be managed.

There are three things that we suggest to enhance the stability of the union at this point. These points should motivate any citizen to write to their representatives in Congress (addresses on this web site) and also suggest to these representatives they consider a peaceful and orderly transfer of power to someone with a sense of mental stability.

Number One: Trump, or any president, should not be allowed to use Twitter. Or at least, the tweets enter a cue that are reviewed by his team before they are released to the world. This is a matter of national security. We must guard that these legal documents of 140 characters not cause damage to our nation.

Number Two: Trump has to release all his tax returns and a law should be enacted that states clearly that all candidates for President, or Vice President, must release the last four years of their tax returns within 90 days of the election. Not doing so should be grounds for disqualification.

Number Three: The Constitution should be modified to create the opportunity for a midterm vote of confidence. We have an election every four years, why not have a midterm referendum which would give the leader a report card of what the electoral feel about the job they are doing. You cannot claim a mandate when things change so quickly.

These are not unreasonable requests. The world has changed. I believed our government was fortified against a lunatic getting into office, but that has been proven to be a false belief. We all have to admit that the very value of the Electoral College, being the safeguard against an unqualified person getting into the highest office, worked in reverse this time. So, we now must pursue a different path to purifying the office of President.

It would be sad to impeach Donald J. Trump and end up with Mike Pence, but when people like Marco Rubio seem to reasonable thinkers and politicians, we can see clearly now that America, yes all of us, have made a terrible mistake. Trump must go. Don’t leave America, stay and fight.

*The headline for this piece was a partial lyric from the 1966 Buffalo Springfield song, “For What It’s Worth” written by Steve Stills.