Jan 5^th

“Everyone is waiting for the outcome of the standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge between the militia men and the well-armed federal authorities.” That is nonsense of course. There has been no confrontation and I’m sure that there will be no confrontation. The Bundy boys and their militia buddies would love to see several bus-loads of FBI agents, and perhaps a few light tanks, drive up to their stronghold. The national publicity would be enormous…but it won’t happen. These men, mostly armed and ready, will have to endure nothing but their own company in a largely deserted and desolate area until they get tired of playing hero and go home to their families.

The nearest town of any size is Burns and it has less than three thousand people…and it is 30 miles away. A closer settlement is Diamond, Oregon, but it has fewer than 600 people. I’m sure the town folk nearby have been coming with casseroles (Under a white flag of course) but after a few weeks that will stop and then what is there to do? Canned beans as a steady diet can be daunting. So the question is, how long will the occupation last…and will these macho men start shooting at each other given there are no federal agents to target? Shortly they will go home telling everyone who will listen that their resolve to defend the Constitution scared away those evil feds. (Now I have just learned that these same feds are “considering” turning off the power to these occupied buildings. (There will probably be a debate eventually about which side was the more inept!)

We are now treated to Donald Trump’s very first paid for and professionally constructed commercial… and true to form it’s photo shopped. The film is not of Mexicans crossing into the United States although it is shown as a narrator claims that Mexicans are pouring over our border, that’s not what’s being shown. The film is from May 3^rd 2014. It was taken at the Moroccan border with a Spanish colony and shows 800 Moroccans trying to cross into Spanish territory. The photo shopping consists of erasing the network origin and the time stamp from the film to make it appear to be of Mexicans crossing into the United States. Trump’s spokespeople claim that Trump’s fans don’t care about the-mislead. They are right of course; if they cared about any of Trump’s wild assertions, from deporting 11 million people to making Mexico pay for a multibillion dollar wall, they would have deserted Donald Trump long ago.

On January 18^th the British Parliament will debate banning Donald Trump from entering their country. There are two petitions: one with 500 thousand signatures to ban him and one with 40 thousand signatures to let him in. Petitions aside, the Brits will let him in; they would no more ban Trump than we would ban Muslims. Banning people on the basis of religious beliefs or on the basis of idiotic comments would not fit with either country’s core beliefs.