Trump, Declaring Sufficiency of U.S. Achievements, Speaks of Military Disbandment

Trump, likely in anticipation of his scheduled public address tonight, has tweeted that the United States can now, declaring its purposes achieved, including successfully creating democracy around the world, can now withdraw almost all of its military from the 800 bases (some say actually more than 1000) around the world.  

This is not an entirely new thing for Trump and therefore not entirely a surprise.  There is precedent with the theme going back in time.  Donald Trump has sporadically called for reducing military spending, most notably in February 2025, when he proposed that the US, Russia, and China cut their defense budgets in half, calling current spending levels "crazy."  (See: CNN- Defense stocks drop after Trump says Pentagon spending could be halved, Thursday, February 13, 2025) His description then of the spending as “crazy,” repeated what he’s said, for instance, in 2018.

Lest there be those who are skeptical of this most recent tweet, Trump seemed to bolster his credibility by simultaneously tweeting that he’d already asked his Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer to address a predictable crisis of unemployment as the military is downsized.  Trump’s press office said to also expect Trump to tweet soon about the stock market in this regard. 

Hinting at his plans, and his seriousness, Trump has already put out a third tweet saying that, as the US’s purposes having been achieved, the United States will now turn the world over to the responsibility of civilians.

Any crisis of unemployment as the military is downsized will be fended off and reversed, because those individuals who were previously employed by the military will now go to work for private police and security forces that will have more to do, “maybe much more,” Trump said before getting on a helicopter.  That’s because of the United States withdrawal.

Obviously- or maybe not so obviously,- it is predicted by people with back channels enabling them to make predictions that a lot of the military’s previous responsibilities will be taken over by companies now owned or to be created by Eric Prince (brother of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s former U.S. Secretary of Education), Eric being the former CEO, and owner of the private security firm Blackwater and associated with companies such as Frontier Resource Group and Vectus. 

The companies assuming new responsibilities will be needing to staff up.  They will be needing capital. Back channel informants say the United States will be supplying loans to them at low interest-rates.

The excuse for the low interest rates?: The posting of good security.  For instance, posted as security will be several air craft carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the USS George H.W. Bush.  No longer needed after the downsizing, these will be transferred to Eric Prince’s companies as military surplus.

Trump is expected to announce the transfers with an “Objectives Achieved” speech where you will see him seem to give the speech from aboard the three air craft carriers.  He can’t be aboard all three at the same time, so at least two of the speeches, maybe all three, will be made by his holographic image striding, and Trump dancing, across their decks.

We’ll all learn and get to know more about this when Trump addresses the nation as planned tonight with his April 1st, April Fools Day speech. 

Gulp! The Gulf of Unknowns To Be Filled In About The Real Reason Dr. Dave Weldon’s Nomination To CDC Was Withdrawn

It’s already several days gone by now since the White House unexpectedly and suddenly withdrew the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon to serve as the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  See:  White House withdraws nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon to lead CDC, by Alayna Treene Meg Tirrell, March 13, 2025

Weldon’s nomination was pulled just before Weldon’s hearing was to take place before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. The nomination was reported pulled by the White House because of its assessment that they didn’t have the votes in the Senate to confirm.

The withdrawal was widely understood to be a set back for Health and Human Services head Robert Kennedy, Jr. as the new Health Secretary, and for the MAHA or “Make America Health Again” plans he is pursuing.

The New York Times described Weldon as having “close ties” to Kennedy noting that they “have known each other for 25 years” and adding that they “both share a deep skepticism of the federal regulatory approach to vaccine safety.”  Regular readers will recognize that, for the Times, “skepticism” about Big Pharma and the way the federal government ostensibly “regulates” it is a bad thing.  And the Times dependably vilifies Kennedy and others for such skepticism.  

Similarly, Forbes reported that Weldon was a friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who they said “holds similar and, in some cases, seemingly more extreme views on some health matters.”

Weldon in a statement said that Kennedy was “very upset” about the withdrawal.

Why was the Weldon nomination withdrawn?  Do we know the whole story?  That’s what this updating story investigates and will report on.

Weldon, posting a statement on Twitter (X), said, “The concern of many people is that Big Pharma was behind this, which is probably true. They are probably the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle.”

Getting more granular, Weldon was blaming two Republican senators for breaking ranks to hand Big Pharma a win that it was desperate for: Maine Sen. Susan Collins’ and Sen. Bill Cassidy, from Louisiana.
                    
Those senators were leveling, as a charge against Weldon, the accusation that he was ‘antivax.’

Dr. Weldon, practices internal medicine.  He’s 71 and an Army veteran. He represented Florida in Congress from 1995 to 2009.  Weldon said he had reminded the senators “that I actually give hundreds of vaccines every year in my medical practice.”  (“Weldon” seems like such an interesting, trust-inspiring name of a practicing doctor.)

But, and here’s a big “but” for Big Pharma, in 2007, Weldon introduced the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act, which aimed to create an “Agency for Vaccine Safety Evaluation” within HHS, independent of the CDC.   Though the bill enumerated provisions that would probably make sense to most people in terms of researching, tracking, collecting data, and investigating the safety of vaccines, the attack on Weldon is arguably good evidence that those kinds of measures are scary to Big Pharma and to the senators like Cassidy and Collins in service to that industry.

But politics are complicated.  Are there other reasons, maybe more real reasons, that Weldon’s appointment was stymied?

One thing to offer is that Weldon is pro-life or anti-abortion.  Although this would have had essentially no relationship to Weldon’s heading up the CDC, it could give Democrats good cover for voting against Weldon.  But the Democrats are staunchly, reflexively, uniformly voting against MAHA and in favor of Big Pharma and vaccines.  Hence they don't need that cover; it’s pure surplusage.

Here’s the fascinating thing behind the scenes that wasn’t taken into account in terms of Weldon’s defeat.  Yes, Big Pharma has kept most of the Congress in line.  Recently, Big Pharma has suffered significant losses to the now Trump-championed MAHA efforts, but this time, major political donor ($100+ million) Miriam Adelson (BTW: also physician), widow of Sheldon Adelson, speaking for the state of Israel, was demanding something that Trump wasn’t forthcoming with.  Therefore, Cassidy and Collins were not being brought to heel by a superior master.

Apparently it wasn’t the requirement that Trump set aside principles of free speech (some enunciated November 8, 2024) to crack down on those criticizing the Israeli state, extending recently to arresting and seeking to deport visitors and students in our country with green cards and visas.  No, apparently that was already just one more thing in the works as something that Trump had promised Adelson/Israel.

Where Trump was failing to change course fast enough to satisfy Adelson/Israel demands is that Trump had already announced he was changing the name of “The Gulf of Mexico” to “The Gulf of America.”  Adelson on behalf of Israel was demanding that the new name that should be ushered in would be “The Gulf of Israel.”

Trump, apparently not thinking that she or Israel could be serious about this, apparently did not respond fast enough and thus, when push came to shove, senators and Cassidy and Collins got the message that they were free to give Big Pharma the win it sought respecting Weldon’s defeat.

Indications are that we are presently going to see Trump come round to renaming The Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America one more time, to the “Gulf of Israel.”  Requests have been made about how this will be depicted on maps. . . .  We refer to America as “Red, White and Blue.” . .

. . . The Adelson/Israel thinking is that the gulf should be depicted as roiled by the tumult of many, many whitecap waves against blue water as a reference to Israeli flag.  Dissenters are proposing that maps of the gulf should now show an ocean of deep bloody red as an emblem of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Maps reflecting “The Gulf of Israel” with proposals are due out today, April 1st.   

New Deliberately Falsified Bill Gates Funded Study To Proclaim The Superior Health Benefits of Beef And Pork Over Candy

Bill Gates has thoughts on how to bring home the bacon while you get to eat your candy too!

Here is breaking news. . .  Bill Gates has a new foundation that will be financing deliberately false science studies about health matters.  Some are blowing this off as a “ho-hum, what’s new” event, but this new foundation will be breaking new ground, setting a new precedent and setting a new bar for well calculated deployment of health misinformation.

The first study planned whereby Bill Gate’s new “I Run Contra Foundation” will get up and running and demonstrate the muscle it will be able to flex will be a study that says that beef and pork are far better for you, much better for your health than candy.

It’s not a problem knowing announcing its results before the study has been done, because the study is Gates funded through the “I Run Contra Foundation.” An internal memo from Gates dispensed with this, just in passing, as not being all a problem, saying, “You get what you pay for and we get what we pay for.”  In releasing the study, once its done, Gates plans to be forthright about the fact that study has been paid for by his new “I Run Contra Foundation.”

“This has to do with new problem we face with many of those we are trying to reach and influence,” explained Gates in the same internal memo. He explained that there are a large number of people who are now influenced extremely by paying attention to who is paying for what and where the money is coming from for certain things and especially now in the health industry arena.  For instance, Gates noted that partners he has conferred with over at Google said that one particular quote that was surging in popularity such that Google was having to work harder and be more creative in its algorithms to suppress it is a quote by Dr. Michael Yeadon former VP of Pfizer, who has problematically for Gates, become a heretic when it comes to officially Gates and the Gates funded World Health Organization prescribed narratives and belief about `vaccines’:

    I tried to follow the science, but it was simply not there— I then followed the money; that’s where I found the science.

Gates said that trying to reach people who thought this way might be vexing, but once you thought about it, the answer was simple: Hence his new “I Run Contra Foundation.”

The foundation will finance a whole range of health studies for consumption by people, the audience of contrarians, who always do the opposite of what they are told when they hear a study is funded by Bill Gates. To avoid confusion for those in the subaudiences who still give credence to narratives aimed at them coming from or endorsed by Gates as a medical expert or owner of medical information, the study will be micro targeted to those individuals who act that way.  With Google assisting in such things as individualizing its search results.  Gates says its virtually assured that only the contrarians will see information about the new “I Run Contra Foundation” studies and releases.         
                   
When will this first study be out?  Since the study is to be palpably flawed by the fact that it will be based on zero research, it can be produced quickly.  Gates suggested that it can even be post dated for an earlier date than it’s official release and suggested that April 1st be would be the perfect date.

Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, And Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, In Talks About Merging Their Broadcasts

Amy Goodman left, Rachel Maddow right

It’s not like `continental drift’ although there is a `drift’ to be gotten, . . . and it is drift on a truly monumental scale.  People talk about `watching grass grow’ or ‘watching paint dry’ when they talk about things happening slowly so as to go unnoticed.  `A watched pot doesn’t boil,’ but when your tea kettle starts whistling, you know that something’s happened.

These are the words of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman letting the cat out of the bag about her talks with Rachel Maddow about merging their shows based on the things they increasingly have more in common.  Goodman seems very happy to be the one giving the exclusive `cat out of the bag’- or is it `trial balloon’?- interview.

“Look,” says Goodman, “change is part of life.”  Goodman seems more relaxed than usual, as though allowing herself to wax philosophically this way is allowing her to speak her thoughts more truthfully in a liberating way.  She continues:

Yes, change is part of life.  It was when Rachel was doing Air America radio with Al Franken as a “left–wing,” albeit poorly funded, counter to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, that people got to know who she is.  That was then. [2004] Now she, like us, has regular headlines that track well with the lead you can get from the New York Times.  Rachel, us, and also pretty dependably the New York Times, we’re true blue behind the powerful narratives of the Democratic Party. When I say that those narratives are powerful, I don’t mean that they are inspiring or attuned to the populace, or to the directions for leadership our populace may yearn and hunger for, what I mean is the power of Democratic party coming from the corporations that the party aligns with and, of course, coming from Wall Street.  It’s those alignments that give the selective narratives of the party extraordinary force as they are deployed and can be insisted on.  And I am very happy about the whole identity politics thing.

If, with some migration of platforms, Democracy Now and the Maddow show are going to merge, the reason for their discussion of the possibility is the growing commonality of themes.

Goodman points out that the nation’s had an era where the awfulness of Donald Trump made it easy to find common ground, “I mean Donald Trump’s awfulness was so important, that you didn’t need to pay attention to really anything else.”  And, she points out there have been a lot of things tying into Donald Trump’s awfulness that were consequently easy to agree on: Russiagate and the way that Russians are nefariously interfering to make this country worse and make Trump more dangerous, January 6th and the way we have to stop insurrectionists from taking away our democracy, which we are realizing really needs to be revered (“January 6th sort of taught me that word `insurrectionist’ and got me thinking about it, before then I doubt I’d thought to know what it meant– did you know it’s right out of the constitution?- Though no law under it yet”- interjects Goodman parenthetically), the way we have to censor hate speech (including anything an insurrectionist or any of those election deniers might have to say, and then there’s need to regulate speech in our social media Town Squares so that people don’t get depressed by conversational downers.

Goodman sips her green tea and goes on: “Rachel is very much against hate speech,” she says, “she’s a firm counter the bad kind of hate speech we both deplore.”  Blowing on her tea, she continues:

We are also aligned by being both on the right side of those divisive cultural issues that the Trump presidency made even easier to checklist for future segment coverage.  Thank God Trump changed his position on abortion, thankfully 180 degrees, before taking on his role as a supremely obnoxious president, otherwise it could have been confusing!

We were also both perfectly aligned on the Covid narrative thing: "Wear a mask, wear two masks," we told our Democracy Now audience, "it’s an act of love.'  (We didn’t get to adding the eye visor thing, but thought about it.- Oh maybe we did)  While Rachel was beautifully firm and emphatic: "Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person."!

The whole Covid thing, the crazy need for lock-downs meant there were a lot of fearful things, numbers and statistics to tumble out before the public in a stream; for a while Democracy Now even changed its mantra slogan from "the war and peace report? to the "quarantine report."  When it comes to history and wars waged, history, when it doesn’t repeat itself, at least rhymes.

But that Covid fear and what to do about it, that’s another thing where we both agreed about how important it was to be saying the right thing and make sure that people were not allowed to say the wrong thing– That Joe Rogan! Talk about people who need to be stopped in their tracks with a dose of good old healthy censorship and centrally managed social opprobrium- Imagine saying good things about the `horse paste’ Ivermectin,

 Mentioning Rogan and Ivermectin Goodman wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“We still have significant differences, Rachel’s show and mine” says Goodman, “so I don’t know where that takes us.”

She mulls:

Rachel is more provincial, addressing herself more specifically to what riles Americans living locally in this country, more specifically, her kind of Americans.  Democracy Now has an increasingly worldwide audience and worldwide sensibility, for instance, Rachel hasn’t caught up to match me with things like my guttural pronunciations, like when I say“Afghanistan,” or introduce my co-host Nermeen Shaikh.  It just isn’t her style, and we can’t expect it.

But Democracy Now can’t leave its worldwide audience behind it.  If this thing is going to happen, we have to take that worldwide audience along with us in the merger.  We at Democracy Now, also spend more time feeling for the victims in this world, which is not exactly the way Rachel likes to keep the energy up, especially when those victims come from far-flung places in the world that Americans have rarely heard of.  When the time comes, we at Democracy Now are better positioned to do truly convincing ‘worthy victim’ stories.

Some things are going to be very problematic.  Democracy Now was originated out of, was incubated out of WBAI, out of the Pacific network of station.  We are still carried on that family of stations, still with a reasonably hefty listenership.  We’ve established ourselves and Pacifica has cast its lot reporting, with a fair amount of honesty, about the Israeli state’s vile and horrendous treatment of Palestinians.  That honesty, on our part and many other Pacifica carried programs, has been determinative in the loss of a certain appreciable amount of funding for Pacifica.  Unlike perhaps some other things, that’s something where we can’t now leave our audience behind by backtracking or denying our core DNA. . .

    . .  But you can imagine what a problem this would be for Rachel.  Even if our meld is only accomplished by doing back-to-back shows that could be a toxic proximity for her.  The solution, if the time comes, may be to take our cue from her.  She deep-sixes those kinds of stories and that kind of reporting.  So you also don’t hear anything about our U.S. Saudi Yemen war from her.— Out of sight is out of mind.  What we could do, and might do, is just move all of out Israel/Palestine reporting and coverage to our web edition special section.  There it would be invisible to the kind of audience that never looks for that kind of thing and justifiably still there for the kind of audience that still does.  You know we are all in our individual bubbles these days.  So you always have to remember to think in those terms.

It causes Goodman to sigh.

But merging these shows is meant to take us counter to that bubble thing.  Instead of isolating bubble thinking, we’ll have more people thinking the same things when we get our shows together.  But we can’t move too fast.  Our audience has to move with us.  We do polling and focus groups to make sure we don’t get too far out in front of them.  We are alert for feedback.  And, for instance, at Democracy Now we’ve recently had to go back and do some stories to illustrate that we are still anti-war and ant-US imperialism, like what’s expected of us from our past.   Like, for instance, with that particular segment of the audience that still listens to us on Pacifica stations, those we haven’t yet pulled away to listen to us just through the disintermediation of our multiple internet platforms, it can a bit jarring right now if our content is too different from other Pacifica shows.

We want to be on the same page with Rachel and crew about things like the Ukraine war, [Goodman catches herself and doubles back]. .  The `Russian provoked’ Ukraine war, [she emphasizes], but our audience can get a little unnerved by the idea we are on the brink of possible nuclear annihilation of the world and wonder if we really are still sincerely for peace enough if we are to expect them to keep following us where we go. An easy way to offer reassurance, like we just did, is to use the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, ahem, U.S. invasion of Iraq, and reiterate where we stood on that twenty years ago.  The past is a place where you can anchor the trust you hope to keep getting  in the future.  So people will keep following into whatever Heraclitian storms may toss us on the waves in that future.

Look, I believe that `in solidarity there is strength.’  For progressivism to win, we have to be rowing in the same direction.  When we marched into wars, the Democrats were once thought of as the anti-war party.  Now we have two war parties, but it’s clear that the Democrats are now taking the lead.  The Republicans have a few isolationists who are against our bringing democracy-enhancing regime change to other countries. . .  The name of our show is Democracy Now, something to remember, when we try to keep our bearings.

The interview can’t end without posing one obvious question: Why not PBS or NPR instead?  Goodman smiles, shaking her head as if disappointed with the quality or lack of perspicacity of such a question, even if it might be obligatory and expected as inevitable.  Goodman speaks slowly and deliberately:

Merging our audience with PBS or NPR wouldn’t be any kind of achievement.  PBS and NPR are already where Rachel and her show are, which is to say, aligned with The Washington Post and New York Times, but PBS and NPR are selling the audience the idea that they are the thinking man’s version and the cultured man’s of media consumption.  That pose already successfully siphons audience, say from Pacifica, when the audience is looking for better production values along not so obvious and time-consuming commercials that you get with `commercial’ broadcasts.  But sliding over there wouldn’t be an achievement.  Because it’s sort of contrary to their brand, PBS and NPR don’t fish for audience indignation, including the Red Team, Blue Team variety of indignation, the way that Rachel and I do,– not so overtly–  Rachel does it with her raised-to-the-sky eyebrow and cocked neck, while I put it in my voice.  I can do it with slight variations in my tone and I also pick words to drawl out more slowly.  Moreover, we at Democracy Now do subtle, not quite subliminal, editorializing with our interspersed music segments, something Rachel doesn’t do.  Bringing our audience to MSNBC with skillful drifting would be a much more real achievement.      

One last question to Goodman (but is it too rude?): And the true “achievement” to be aspired to might also be inextricably associated with handsome recompense?— Doesn’t Rachel Maddow get paid something like $30 million a year counting salary and regular bonuses?  Goodman simply smiles.

Democracy Now and The Rachel Maddow Show are not merging broadcasts just yet.  This April 1st interview with Goodman was just to preview how it’s being talked about.  Goodman was specific that if it happens it could be a year from now, say next April 1st, or two years from now on the April 1st after that.

Attaining A New Level of Global Nuclear Weapons Security, Weapons Will Be Purchased For Transfer Away From Belligerent Countries To New Private Peace Keeping Consortium

The Four Bien Guys Peace Project: Bezos, Zukerberg, Gates and Musk

“Blessed are the peacemakers” is what the Bible’s New Testament tells us Jesus told his assembled flock in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9): “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”  Blessed once were also the “Peacekeepers,” missiles made by Martin Marietta, the LGM-118 being the most modern ICBM in the United States Air Force  inventory (designed primarily for nuclear weapons delivery- one or more thermonuclear warheads, third-generation) for almost 20 years before it was retired in 2005 as a result of arms reduction treaties.

Once we had nuclear weapons called “Peacekeepers”; Now its time for all the nuclear weapons on our earth to all to be called the “Peacemakers,” because that’s what their new owners have decided they will all be renamed upon transfer of title.  And this will signify the purpose of a new plan being executed to attain a new maximum level of procured global nuclear weapons security.  Heretofore, nuclear weapons have all been very undependably held by various belligerent countries, holding those devices out of fear and hostility towards one another.  But this is an inherently dangerous situation and, as recent years have made clear, few things are as unstable as the governments of all the countries across the world, basically each and every one of them: Any madman can be elected to head almost any one of them.  (Let’s leave out the word “almost.”)

Moreover, there is another problem: Nuclear weapons like ICBMs fly through outer space.  As everyone knows, the space race and space exploration has been taken over by the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and their private companies who, for their purposes of being in outer space in the first place, want serenity and order in our starry skies.  Who wants a belligerent nation’s ICBM whizzing past their telecommunications satellite?  Or zooming within impact zones of their lower altitude hovering (LEO- “Low Earth Orbit”) “internet of all things” 5G tracking monitors?  

And things have gotten dangerously worse: The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 set outer space aside for peaceful purposes. For decades, it precluded any nation from deploying weapons in space or waging war there.  But, much to the consternation of other nations, including China and Russia, the United States walked away from the treaty even as Trump launched Space Force, a new branch of the U.S. military specifically to fight in outer space.

To people like Bezos and Musk, and to their friends who think like them, Bill Gates and Mark Zukerberg most specifically, the answer for the world was simple, basically more of the same that came with privatizing space flight: “Why share?”  If the heavens are to be privately theirs for all other purposes of regular space frontier dominance, why share any last lick of the heavens for the potential destructive interference of weapons flying through the stratosphere and beyond, maybe catastrophically even leaving behind the clutter of exploded debris that would be impossible to deal with?  “If the orbit of our planet is filled with a debris field,” says Musk, “it will be impenetrable and we will never be able to leave earth to go elsewhere as should be humanity’s destiny.”

The answer was not to put the nuclear arms industry out of business (potentially unending the world’s economies), but to expand and bring the weapons under private ownership.  For this purpose a new peace keeping or peace making consortium has been formed by a small group of four Big tech colossuses, Musk, Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg. Into this private consortium will be conveyed all the world’s nuclear weapons.  These four men are four of the ten wealthiest men who just doubled their wealth during Covids’ two years.  As these four are taking the lead for the public’s benefit here, they are naming the consortium the Four-Bien Guys Project.  (“Bien” is French, a not too foreign word for “good.”)

“It’s a natural next step for private ownership,” says Bill Gates who has been privatizing the worldwide health delivery schema along with worldwide thought patterns about it, while buying up farmland to become the biggest owner of it in the United States.  Gates amplified:

Since governments are  increasingly less dependable, corporations are increasingly taking things into their own hands in other areas, privatization of intelligence agency work, private military forces, schools, etc.

    Nuclear weapons are just another subset of science, which, as you see with medicine, pharma, the private ownership of the internet and most of the electronic technology that serves us, plus all the patent joint-venturing investments of our universities, has all been privatized already.– The arc of history is long, but it bends toward privatization.  It bends toward neoliberalism.  It bends toward `liberalism’ actually-- I don’t know why we have to put that “neo” in before the word, except to assure conservatives that what we are talking about is actually compatible with, and essentially what they also believe in.  

The four guys said that they will be calling in their chits with other oligarches around the world to make sure the plan happens with the necessary responsiveness from– not naming any names-  all their respective countries.  

Bezos and Zukerberg both say that they feel at ease with their assumption, via the consortium, of responsibilities that, before transfer, once had a military flavor.  Bezos pointed out that he built up the gigantism of his entire Amazon empire based on skillful and knowledgeable use of the internet and that his maternal grandfather and mentor, Lawrence Preston Gise was one of those who, at DARPA launched and set the internet in motion, plus, he said, he was now doing a lot of work with the CIA and also acquired and owns a newspaper that is one of the most important in the country for telling American what to think about USA’s military conflicts. Zukerberg noted that the nuclear weapons sharing under NATO was certainly a foremost means by which such weapons were deployed throughout the world and that he had a lot of experience and was very comfortable working with NATO’s Atlantic Council think tank to regulate Facebook sharing and news popularity and permissions on the platform.

The weapons will be paid for.  Title to the weapons will transfer to the consortium at the very outset, whereupon their renaming as “Peacemakers” will take place, but payments will be made over an extended period, which may or may not be keyed to the time frame during which the weapon’s incorporated isotopes are expected to remain radioactive.  A loan will be provided to the Four-Bien Project Consortium by the Fed.

The U.S. Space Force and all its employees will also be simultaneously transferred to the consortium.  Gates said, “we need them to feel secure in space and these days we can only depend on ourselves to make sure they get paid.”  Commanding the Space Force after transfer will be Comdr. Newt Rippley who has expressed assurance that experiences resulting from the privatizations will be good.

The various governments of the world have agreed to pay (or as the case may be, will be required to pay) to the consortium a caretaking fee. But, while the agreed upon and the to-be-specified amounts are more than enough to pay the loan, Gates is not sure that payments can always be expected to come in on time: “If governments were that dependable, we wouldn’t have to step into so many situations continually to take over.”  He says that taking care of nuclear materials is also very expensive and could take thousands of years.

Because humans lack longevity and are not exactly so perfect for the job, keeping the weapons will be turned over to robots and there is fanfare about this as an opportunity to unroll the most start-of-the-art AI, that will also apply to clear algorithms about how and when and what would apply if there is ever a question of whether any weapons needed to be used.  This is one reason Gates was solicited as a principal to participated in the consortium.  “This is really most desirable” says Bezos of the robots, “because, after all, who would want just a few oligarchs deciding what is best when it comes to matters that concern the fate of the entire world.– No, says Gates, we will be keeping ourselves out of these decisions.”

So “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the divine children of our gods.”  A memorandum of understanding to effect the plan is being signed today, April 1st, with a consummation date for full transfer specified as one year from today, also April 1st.

PBS And The Muppets To Partner With The Wall Street Journal And HBO To Bring More Content To The Public With The Launch Of Its PBS “Passport Two” Service

Bill Maher interviewed Elmo the Muppet about the new Passport Two service partnership, PBS, HBO, the Muppets and the Wall Street Journal

Something new is coming!  A more better version of Public Broadcasting in the form of PBS’s new “Passport Two” access.

It’s been six years since PBS and all its member stations launched its “freemium” Passport service, a new membership streaming service in order to do a better job at, and bring more of its Public Broadcasting Station content to the public by providing video-on-demand to members of the public paying a subscriber’s fee.  (See: PBS Passport serves up on-demand content for public TV’s members, by Jill Goldsmith, Contributing Editor,  December 15, 2015.)

Also, at that time, in a parallel move, PBS’s Muppets inked another “freemium” deal with HBO to help bring more and better Muppet content to public broadcasting.  (See: Sesame Street Is Moving To HBO In 5-Year Deal That Will Give PBS Free Episodes, by Lynn Elber, August 13, 2015)–   Point of fact- It’s actually not correct to say it’s “PBS’s Muppets”: Though long closely associated with PBS and although Big Bird testified before Congress to protect PBS funding, PBS having been the network through which the Muppets became universally identified as the children educating, family friendly and very amusing puppets that they are, PBS does not actually own the Muppets.– The deal inked with HBO allowed the subscribers of HBO’s premium services to see newly made Muppet episodes first and then let HBO pass the episodes along for rerun on PBS air after a nine-month exclusivity window.  (See: Sesame Street's move to HBO, explained, by Emily VanDerWerff, January 16, 2016)

With the launch of its original Passport service in 2015, PBS leapt into “the age of on-demand viewing” and aimed:

to deliver a one-two punch that will dazzle station donors with significant upgrades to their digital viewing experiences. Executives also hope the new service will entice younger viewers to watch more public TV programs and become members.

Now, with new partnerships, and a pivotal partnership with the Wall Street Journal, PBS and the Muppets collaborating together will be launching their new Passport Two service to deliver more of that “one-two punch.”  It’s obviously important since digital on-demand streaming is the obvious future, the destiny that is fast replacing what used to be watched as regular television.  The freemium availability of extensive PBS content only to those who are donating as subscribers is an obvious update of traditional station contributor perks: As was noted, in 2015 when Passport was launched, “an ecstatic Daniel Greenberg, chief digital officer at New York City’s WNET, a station that piloted Passport” said that this freemium availability of the extensive PBS content only available to viewers who donate should be seen as “a contemporary version of the tote bag.”

With the help and involvement of the Wall Street Journal PBS and the Muppets will be able to produce much higher quality, better informed, and better sourced content.  Among the offerings will be upgraded nightly news programs and a regular new stock market program on the days the stock market is open.  Passport Two subscribers will be able to see the news programs live and on demand anytime thereafter.  Station contributors who continue as regular Passport station members will be able to see the news the next morning after a twelve-hour window.  News programs will be available on the air for any and all members of the public twenty-four hours after origination.  During elections, Passport Two will adhere to a generous practice now already followed by the Wall Street Journal: News content about the elections and providing people with insight and information about how they should vote will be open and supplied to all immediately.

The partnership with the Wall Street Journal is expected to bring in many new members and high donation contributors, luring them in from the Wall Street Journal’s reader base and from Wall Street and financial industry in general.  To make sure that Passport Two gets a good kick off in this regard, anyone who has paid steadily to get behind the Wall Street Journal’s paywall over the past two years will automatically be gifted a year and half of Passport Two access.  This will enure that insider conversation gets Passport Two talked about and paid attention to by those who swing power.                 

Passport Two will most times go by the simple, sweet, short name of “Passport Two,” but various times and in the smaller print on the logo for the service it will be more fully inclusive of its entire official name: “Passport Two- PBS/WSJ.”   Mr. P. Rite Gold of the Wall Street Journal said that the initials “WSJ” should implicitly be understood to represent the Wall Street Journal and its involvement, but that they would also, in the context of Passport Two, be promoting “WSJ” to mean “Wellness and Social Justice,” a focal mission of the service.

Passport Two logo- "WSJ"= "Wall Street Journal" and "Wellness and Social Justice"

Concept and design plans for the Passport Two service were developed with seed money from the Wallace and Pace Summer Foundation.  Wally Summer Jr, who now heads that foundation said that denizens of Wall Street would definitely understand the intended Passport Two set up without any problem.  Summer said that on Wall Street, where everyone is welcome to invest, the value of timely information and the ability to act on it quickly is well understood.  That was why, he said, Wall Street firms were willing to pay exorbitantly for computers with downtown Manhattan locations whose connection would be micro-seconds closer to the Wall Street stock exchange in order to be able to execute trades faster.

How do Sesame Street and the Muppets benefit from the new Passport Two partnerships?  To answer that question, Elmo went on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to engage in a charming interview with Bill Maher about what Passport Two will mean for the future of educating and communicating with kids.

Elmo explained to Maher that some of the new Muppet Passport Two productions will slant upwards to start taking in a somewhat maturing juvenile audience that’s more capable of absorbing the kind of content that Wall Street Journal has extraordinary mastery of.  To this end, Sesame Street’s Muppets world will introduce a new character, Alfalfa, whose most distinguishing  characteristic will be his funny pubescent Muppet voice crack. (The Muppets recently acquired the rights of the Hal Roach Studio “Our Gang,” “Little Rascal” films from ViacomCBS and Sonar Entertainment.  That means the Little Rascals are now also indirectly owned by Disney, which acquired the Muppets in February of 2004.  Muppeteer Jim Henson, their creator, died May of 1990.)

Elmo told Maher that, echoing a little of the approach of the defunct “My Weekly Reader” of the days of yore, new Muppet shorts would be produced to make juveniles aware of, and conversant with, current world events and educate them about civics issues.  Elmo said that a segment was in the works titled, “Why We Should Go To War With Iran” and there was a related short feature involving a cartoon yellow submarine titled “How We Can Go To War With Iran.”  Several editors from the WSJ editorial page are volunteering their time to contribute ideas.  One short segment, focused on civics, completed with the help of the editors is already complete: “Why A Socialist Venezuela Threatens American Values.”   
 

In his interview Elmo told Bill Maher about the cartoon segment using a submarine to teach about relationships with Iran

Chuckling, Maher responded, “You Tickle me, Elmo,” an obvious indication that Maher’s Covid era challenged writers are not up to producing their best material right now.  Contributing, statements for HBO to a press release announcing Passport Two, Maher said, “HBO’s willingness to join with the Muppets, the Wall Street Journal and PBS provides a firm answer, a resounding negative answer to the question (See: Will AT&T Be Able to Handle HBO? By John Koblin, June 14, 2018) of whether ATT’s 2018 acquisition of HBO and Time Warner would result in detrimental changes to HBO.”

Maher’s press release statements asserted that with the media corporation “Game of Thrones” style wars competing for complete content dominance, ATT had been a “nonpassive corporate parent insisting that HBO must get bigger and broader.” Thus, “yes,” he said, with the acquisition “there have been changes” and “HBO has been developing less expensive, shorter length content suitable for the modern era of today’s challenged attention spans,” but that “those changes have all been good.”

PBS says that it is not the only charity participating in the Passport Two paywall project, that PBS’s own participation had induced additional partners to be included, particularly an expansion of HBO’s recent partnerships with libraries around the country that includes NYPL, the New York Public Library, and the Brooklyn Public Library.  (See: New York Public Library and HBO Partner, by Gary Price on May 29, 2018 and Brooklyn Public Library Partners With HBO To Promote HBO Subscription Content Offering “My Brilliant Friend-  “The Blue Fairy”, April, 2020)      

Explaining the Passport Two participation partnership to the NYPL trustees, NYPL president Tony Marx said “HBO is providing some great video talent” and it is providing that “great video talent” just when it’s going to be ever more important for the internet streaming and internet digital availability that, like Covid, is ushering us away from books and physical libraries.  Brooklyn Public Library spokesperson Les Izmur, said the BPL heartily agreed.

The new CEO of HBO, Constance Ailes (daughter of Roger who died in May of 2017), who was recently hired by HBO president John K. Billock to replace former CEO Richard Plepler, says HBO is jubilant about its partnering with the libraries:  “The libraries are repositories of so many stories no longer subject to copyright that, through creative retelling, we can make our own so that Passport Two will be an ever more essential part of life.”

Wally Summer of the Wallace and Pace Summer Foundation said that partnerships like these are so important to ensure that PBS will continue to be commercial free.  He noted that these partnerships were even more fruitful in that regard in that Disney, as a proud “nonpassive corporate parent was pumping even more money into the Passport Two partnerships than the Muppet episodes were costing.”  In recognition of this, PBS will run sponsorship acknowledgment spots thanking Disney with brief clips from “The Mandalorian,” “Black Panther,” “Hamilton,” and “Avengers: Infinity War,” referencing Disney’s new Disney+ steaming service.

Passport Two will launch at an initial monthly fee of just $89.  However, in a public health and cross-cultural event supporting move, the Passport Two will promote `Passport’ awareness in general by initially offering Passport Two for the reduced cost of $29 monthly for those who have obtained Covid Passports, the proof that concert and cultural event goers are going to be getting that they have been double vaccinated in order to allow then be able to resume normal cultural activities like attending the Broadway Theater when it reopens.

Not all of PBS’s content will be run exclusively behind the Passport Two paywall for prescribed windows of time: PBS’s “Frontline,” regularly a joint venture with the New York Times will continue, as always, to be available to the public from the first date of publication.  Although it will continue to be free and available as before, it will now be available through the Passport Two apps as an enticement for Passport Two membership.  The New York Times, currently uses the freemium model of allowing a certain number of articles to be read free each month, after which a subscription to the Times is needed to be able to read more.  In contradistinction, the Times/PBS “Frontline” production however has always been entirely free, permanently posted on the internet except for one episode about Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“Frontline” producers said that “Frontline’s” messages about how divided the American public is, making it impossible for our country to agree upon or effectively address issues, together with Frontline’s subtle appeals to the PBS intelligentsia in favor of war and interventionism were too valuable and important to put behind a paywall.  Times spokesperson Mimidae Passerine said that for the New Times to continue to lead the national dialogue, signaling and blessing the important narratives with what is referred to as “The Times Effect,” it was the kind of propaganda that needed to get out immediately and unimpeded.

The Passport Two service launches today, the first day of April, April 1st.

Boeing Blames Its Two 737 MAX Jet Crashes On U.S. FAA Regulations- Demands Federal Compensation

Boeing management today released the result of an internally conducted study that found that its two Boeing 737 MAX Jet Crashes were caused by United States Federal Aviation Administration regulations.  Boeing demanded immediate action from Congress to compensate their company for all crash losses.  Their demand includes asking for Boeing to be compensated for the economic loses and reduced profits Boeing suffered due to worldwide grounding of 737 MAX jets that ensued following the cashes.

Boeing’s spokesperson for the occasion of the release of the report, Skip Ayres Ohsonize, explained that while everybody knows that regulation of American companies makes them less competitive and thereby weakens them, what the report revealed was something less obvious; that excess federal government regulation can foment unforeseen dangers as well. Mr. Ohsonize explained that federal regulation had essentially forced Boeing into designing a dangerous plane.

“Boeing, our company, was in an untenable position,” said Mr. Ohsonize.  Airbus SE the European multinational aerospace corporation, had moved into a position where it was taking the most airliner orders internationally and was poised to be take over the airliner market with increasing sales of its new A320 airliner.  “We weren’t going to stand by and let Airbus steal market share,” said Mr. Ohsonize, “that’s something that an American company has a duty to prevent, and we needed to move quickly.” The main selling point of the new A320 was its fuel-efficient engines. “We appropriately rushed to provide a Boeing alternative,” said Mr. Ohsonize, “that’s when the way in which F.A.A. regulations were unfortunately structured to slow us down if we took certain actions forced us into dangerous airplane design.”

Larger and powerful new engines were the key that was absolutely necessary to provide an airliner that would be able advertise competitive fuel efficiency.   Bigger engines to provide this fuel efficiency involve different airplane aerodynamics.  Mr. Ohsonize, said, “it is easy to understand that, without F.A.A. regulations factoring in, the obvious best way for us at Boeing to proceed would have been to design a new airliner from scratch.”

“But under F.A.A. regulations, it would have taken a decade to produce a new plane from scratch,” said Mr. Sogh Ahlphaul, an engineer contributing to the report for Boeing.  That’s because F.A.A. regulations would have required an extensive review certification process for any new airframe and fuselage, plus a brand new airline design would have required the purchasing airlines to spend millions of dollars on additional pilot training. “Facing competitive pressure from Airbus, we needed to avoid that,” said Mr. Ahlphaul.  He further explained:

Under the circumstances and needing to maintain profits, we were forced to go in the direction that F.A.A. regulations were clearly steering us: It was far quicker, easier and cheaper, and would provide almost as much fuel savings to mount larger engines on an existing airframe, and so we used the airframe of the earlier 737 models.

In other words, base the MAX would be one more member in Boeing’s “737 family,” a well-known design, rooted in the original 1967 certification of the B737-100.

Mr. Ahlphaul explained that “the F.A.A., for regulation purposes, would then allow us to say that this airplane was essentially the same as earlier 737 models, making it easy to certify it quickly.”  Moreover, this approach would limit any training that regulations might otherwise dictate that pilots could need, thus, he said, “cutting down costs for the purchasing airlines.”

Mr. Ohsonize, said:

Our report makes clear how the course the regulations drove us to take at Boeing was not optimal.  The old vintage airframe on which the new larger engines were mounted was designed with its wings very low to the ground, requiring more clearance for the larger engines.  That clearance could only be achieved by moving the engines forward.  Additionally, the landing gears also needed to be moved forward. This altered the aerodynamics of the plane, making it more likely to pitch up in some circumstances.  It made it harder to fly and it handled in an unstable fashion, with a tendency for the airplane to buck upward, very different in ways from what pilots, used to the classic 737 workhorse model from the days of yore, were familiar with.  These differences were mostly opposite to what pilots might intuitively understand from their previous experience.

“That’s why,” said Mr. Ahlphaul, “we interfaced the Artificial Intelligence automated MCAS system to let that robot system fly the plane while allowing pilots to feel like they were flying another plan entirely.”  The system would take care of adjustments to the aircraft and its behavior tendencies automatically, like automatic signals to the horizontal stabilizer to push the nose back down when it pitched up. Doing this avoided any need to retrain pilots.

The pilots could operate the plane the same way they operated prior iterations. “We could not let any designs we created be something where F.A.A. regulations would irksomely drive any new training that required a simulator; That was a first imperative,” said Mr. Ahlphaul.

Another bad decision the F.A.A. requirements forced, according to Mr. Ahlphaul, was the design of the cockpit instrument panel.  He explained:

When we updated the cockpit, actually ungraded to a digital display, we would have liked to have redesigned the layout of information to give pilots added data so they could have had information to track all the newly layered on idiosyncratic behaviors of the 737 MAX Jet design.  We could even have made the panel easier to read. That’s what we would have done absent F.A.A. Regulation, but, once again, when the constraints of F.A.A. regulations had to be considered, such a redesigned panel that did not accord with the notional conceit that, for regulatory purposes, pilots were flying 737 models, not something else, would have triggered an expensive regulatory requirement for new pilot training.

“It’s too bad regulations precluded this option,” supplied Mr. Ohsonize with emphasis, “because it could have helped the human pilots fill in some necessary blanks about their situation when the robot MCAS system failed to read sensors, as happened, contributing to the crashes.”

At the press conference where the report was released, Rahz Zellmann, a Boeing Senior Vice President, was on hand to state Boeing’s demands for the compensation it was demanding from the federal government for the damage. First off Mr. Zellmann wanted to be clear that the F.A.A. regulations were not Boeing’s fault.  He said that Boeing had been fighting for years to eliminate such regulations, and that Boeing had even succeeded in pushing through legal changes that reduced F.A.A. regulatory oversight, replacing it with Boeing having the power of self-certification in its factories, with more and more certification responsibilities being handed over to the manufacturers over the years. But Mr. Zellmann said that half-way measures of this kind were not enough.

Mr. Zellmann said that when self-certifications were coupled with old criteria and standards that remained applicable, Boeing engineers still wound up self-consciously distracted and looking over their shoulders thinking that if F.A.A. technical staff became had been fully aware of designs details and changes (including for instance with the MCAS robot guidance) the agency could likely require additional scrutiny.  “Engendering this kind of nervousness,” said Mr. Zellmann, “is not the same thing, as having the totally unencumbered ability you need to design freely and sidestep a meddlesome government.”  Mr. Zellmann said that self-certification had, however, allowed Boeing to achieve some benefits, such as determining that certain modern safety tools incorporated into newer editions of other airliners in 737 family, did not need to be included in the MAX because they were “impractical.”

Mr. Zellmann said that Boeing’s demand both for elimination of regulation and for compensation from the federal government ought now additionally to looked at, in an edifying way, through the lens of the Covid-19 coronavius crisis.  Zellmann noted that, taking into account the virus crisis, the Environment Protection Agency was indefinitely suspending enforcement of environmental laws.  According to Mr. Zellmann, that just goes to show how unimportant these laws actually are for protecting the public.  “They are half window dressing,” said Mr. Zellmann said, “and half an excuse for members of Congress to demand campaign contributions from the regulated firms as the expensive price to procure regulatory capture.”

“More important,” Mr. Zellmann said, “the corona virus crisis, comes at a time when it is crucial for the United States to remain strong.”  “This means,” said Mr. Zellmann, “that even if Boeing were not identifying the harms and losses Boeing suffered by virtue of the F.A.A. regulation, that at the present moment the federal government should be stepping up to give trillions to Boeing, because Boeing is one of the key military contractors requiring the most money from the United States to stay on a constant worldwide war footing.”  Zellmann made the point that the federal government could not afford to let grounded Boeing MAX jets financially weaken Boeing’s ability to keep the country strong and stand up to other countries during the coronavirus crisis.  Mr. Zellmann said that to protect the United States during the Covid-19 crisis it was essential for there to be as many military airplanes manufactured by Boeing to be able to make sure that countries like Iran were cut off from the medical supplies they needed so that the virus could multiple there and not here.           

“We benefit,” said Mr. Zellmann, “if we can assure that virus multiplication means that they have a far worse escalation of infectious cases within their borders than we do within ours.”  “It’s the kind of warfare you have to wage when to comes to germs,” said Mr. Zellmann. Said Mr. Zellman, “Boeing’s strong backup is a crucial ingredient to the U.S.’s intensification of sanctions against Iran to further weaken its healthcare system and economy during the during COVID-19 crisis.”

Mr. Zellmann said that with the Covid-19 crisis timing is everything: February wasn’t March and everything will certainly be different this coming month from the way it was in March.  He noted that Congress was acting quickly, as of a few days ago, to send trillions of dollars in Covid-19 bailout money to big corporations, of which Boeing naturally expected its share.  Mr. Zellmann said Boeing was releasing it’s report and demands for compensation at the beginning of this month to ensure that Congress didn’t move to unfairly prevent Boeing from getting everything is deserved with some sort of anti-double dipping provision, or anti-triple dipping provision.  That’s why, Mr. Zellman emphasized the official release date for the report is today, April 1st.

Fossil Fuel Greenhouse Gas Pollution Blamed For Trump’s Election: New Study Teaming Up Health Scientists And Election Data Scientists Reaches Startling Conclusion

A scientific analysis that clouded thinking, i.e. CO2 clouds, led to the election of Donald J. Trump

A scientific analysis that clouded think, i.e. CO2 clouds, led to the election of Donald J. Trump.
Two heads are better than one, and two teams of scientist bringing together different areas of expertise that might never have been thought of as related can uncover and explain things that heretofore have gone entirely unnoticed. . . .

. . . That’s why we are now getting crucial new insights into some very important matters from a new study produced by health scientists studying the effects of carbon dioxide, CO2, the greenhouse house gas being pumped into the atmosphere as we burn fossil fuels, who teamed up with election data scientists who can explain exactly what accounts for often unpredictable swings of the American electorate.  It’s been more than two years, almost two and half, since Donald J. Trump was, to the great surprise of many, declared the elected president of the United States.  Now, reviewing carefully collected facts and statistics and applying a kind of analysis that nobody previously was perspicacious enough to apply, it turns out that Trump’s election can be handily explained– It's not a reason anyone thought of before.

That nobody thought of it before is probably due to the way that scientists too often operate in their own independent thought silos not realizing how their work interrelates with work that others are doing in the world.  Thankfully, we got some synergy leading to something better after two scientists from disparate specialties encountered each other in one of Harvard's faculty cafeterias and afterwards decided to bring their teams together to fashion a joint study uniting their respective areas of expertise.

For some time now scientists have known, including the work of a Harvard study confirming the findings of a little-publicized 2012 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that increasing levels of CO2, although colorless and odorless, can have deliver adverse health effects.  That includes “a direct and negative impact on human cognition and decision-making.”  (See- Exclusive: Elevated CO2 Levels Directly Affect Human Cognition, New Harvard Study Shows, Joe Romm, October 26, 2015.)  The effects are more pronounced in indoor environments where trapped CO2 can accumulate and rise to even higher levels, the more sealed an insulated the room is to conserve energy, the more readily the CO2 can accumulate.  That can be especially problematic in situations where rooms are well populated by the carbon dioxide-expelling breath of many human beings.

At concentrations of 1,000 ppm, human cognitive ability declines by around 21 percent.  (See: The Uninhabitable Earth- Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think, by David Wallace-Wells, July 9, 2017.)  The problem is not just the better insulation of buildings that prevents air exchange; it is that with CO2 rising throughout the earth’s atmosphere, now over 400 parts per million, the baseline from which such build up starts is increasing and the outdoor atmosphere has a less restorative effect when mixed back in where indoor levels are high.

What can this look like indoors?  In examples the 2012 LBNL-SUNY article gives:

In surveys of elementary school classrooms in California and Texas, average CO2 concentrations were above 1,000 ppm, a substantial proportion exceeded 2,000 ppm, and in 21% of Texas classrooms peak CO2 concentration exceeded 3,000 ppm.

The Harvard health scientists noted that when cognition and decision-making are impaired by high CO2 levels, thinking becomes more primal and what has, in politics, been termed the “lizard brain,” that operates out of the brain’s more primitive limbic system and its amygdala, asserts itself.  The effects on politics and political outcomes of the “lizard brain” have already been widely discussed and analyzed by those concerned with political dynamics, prediction and calculations.

Trump rise psychology? - The "lizard Brain"

Predicted voting behaviors= matrix

What the teamed up scientists were able to do was create a matrix of predictive behaviors for cohorts of voters across all spectrums.  This was coupled with replicative testing involving focus sessions about how these cohorts would vote.  Overlaid was testing of the predictive shifts based on the brain and cognitive effects of the current amounts of extra CO2 pollution that they were able to research and determine that different cohorts of voters were experiencing and how with impaired cognition they would let their lizard brain impulses surface and ultimately control their choice. . .

The result was a range of predicted outcomes from the assessed influence that CO2 pollution was already having through cognitive impairment on U.S. voting behavior in 2016.  The scientists said that it was impossible to tell exactly where within this determined range the effect might actually have been on the election, but that no matter where it fell, it was clear that the effective decision making impairment was enough to account for swinging enough voters to get Trump “elected” in each and every set of determined probabilities.

As an example of how the effects were taken into account, information about how much time different groups of voters generally spend inside also had to be considered.  California voted very blue in the national election and that was accounted for partly by the amount of time Californians spend outdoors, often at the patios of outdoor restaurants where patrons are kept warm with outdoor gas burning space heaters.

While the results of the study only reached conclusions about the direct cognitive impairment effects of CO2, the paper also noted for future analysis a number of other ways the researchers have already begun to study that increased CO2 pollution in the atmosphere could have affects on the election as well.  As OSHA, the United States Occupational Health Administration, notes, high CO2 levels can also leave human beings lethargic.  The researchers feel that this probably affected voter turnout.

The researchers further pointed out that high CO2 levels also affect human cognition (and generate listlessness) indirectly via a reduction in the nutrients in the food human beings are eating.  See: Rising CO2 Is Reducing The Nutritional Value Of Our Food, by Fiona McMillan, May 27, 2018 and How More Carbon Dioxide Can Make Food Less Nutritious, by Brad Plumer, May 23, 2018.

With CO2 levels still rising in the planet's atmosphere, the scientists predict that in future elections will reflect even more exaggerated swings in the voting electorate of this nature.

The scientists said that they had hurried to get the results of their study out in time for the unfolding of the next national election cycle.  They said that they regretted not having been able to do their research and release information even sooner.  They said they would have been able to produce results sooner, but that they had a hard time being taken seriously when they proposed their study for funding.  This was because so many of their potential funders believed that other reasons provided a more probable explanation for Trump’s election.

The researchers admitted that other factors were highly influential in turning the election Trump’s way.  They said that included various forms of voter suppression, unreliable voting machines and votes that likely went uncounted. However, they said what really derailed their ability to get to bottom of what turned the election was something else. . 

The researchers said that, at one point, funding they had lined up for their study was diverted when their funder decided that a better use of the funds would be to send it as an unsolicited bonus to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to encourage Ms. Maddow to do more of her Russiagate investigation reporting.  The researchers pointed out that the unsolicited bonus must have been the very teeniest drop in the bucket given Ms. Maddow’s astronomical multi-million annual salary.
                                   
The irony is that the researchers, who are now at work on documentation respecting a new analysis, say that the cognition-impairing effects of CO2 pollution, which are indiscriminate, almost certainly account for the nation’s long distraction by the Russiagate probe championed by Maddow.

First publication of the researchers study and documentation is to be put up on Facebook on April 1st.

Setting Back Any Setbacks, The NRA Once More Succeeds In Further Advancing Its Policies In The Wake of The Parkland Student-Led Protests (or Mr. Novak Gets His Gun!)

Just as the NRA wanted it: Mr. Novak gets his gun

Things looked bad for the NRA (National Rifle Association) after the Parkland Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings: 17 people in six minutes of AR-15 assault rifle gunfire mayhem, the majority, 14 of them, students between the ages of 14 and 18.

This time the school shooting was followed by students organizing themselves in eloquent protest.  The very conservative Republican Florida state legislature and governor even responded by passing some new limitations on gun ownership in the state.  On March 9, Republican Governor Rick Scott signed legislation sent to him by the legislature raising the minimum age for buying rifles in Florida to 21, establishing waiting periods and background checks, banning bump stocks and barring some potentially violent or mentally unstable people from possessing guns.  At the urging of the NRA the bill also provided for the arming of teachers with guns.

Originally the Republican legislators were working to pass legislation to require that teachers be armed in every school.  Not giving the NRA exactly what it wanted with respect to its long-standing hope to arm teachers, the bill, as passed, funded (with $67 million*) a voluntary, not a mandatory a “marshal” program that schools could opt into to equip and train certain teachers, including counselors, coaches and librarians, but not full-time classroom teachers.

(*  These funds will be rerouted from school library expenditures.)

A setback for the NRA?  The NRA doesn’t get scared in such situations; they just get their agenda advanced.  If all it takes is a few extra weeks of waiting, in the end they get what they want, and then some.

The Florida legislature is revisiting the legislation that was passed in order to eliminate the recently enacted gun restrictions while significantly beefing up and making mandatory the program to arm teachers.  As revised, almost every teacher in every Florida school will now be required to carry a firearm while on duty.

“The commotion and hubbub about these things just needed to die down a bit for people to think clearly,” said NRA spokesperson Jennifer Baker.  “Those protests are now so last week,” she added.   But while the NRA was biding time waiting for things to die down, they were working to bring the press to heel, while feeding it a negative view of the opposition.

Women who speak for the NRA: Dana Loesch and Susan LaPierre

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, like Ms. Baker, not only vilified the media for reporting the Parkland school shooting and others just for the sake of ratings, she said that the Parkland students, as young as they were, were not qualified to make anti-gun statements.  “These students are mere babies,” she said, “and when they criticize guns and the right to bear arms just because of a few dead friends, they are being cry babies.  At that age, unless you, yourself already own a gun, know how to use it and understand our interpretation of the Second Amendment, you are not qualified to speak on the subject.” 

Click to enlarge

Perhaps even more effective than portraying the opposition negatively, the NRA swung Florida legislators’ votes by unveiling a new PR campaign with which they promise to soon be flooding the airwaves.  The NRA bought the rights to the likeness of James Franciscus from the estate of the dead actor.  From 1963 to 1965 the chiseled James Franciscus made a splash (many TV Guide covers) playing the title character “Mr. Novak” in a Peabody Award-winning TV series about an idealized role model of a sensitive English teacher who “who helped his high school students with their problems.”  The new NRA campaign, “Mr. Novak Gets Armed,” will again promote the Novak character as an ideal teacher, this time slinging a gun.

Click to enlarge

Jennifer Baker said that the NRA was quite pleased to have acquired the James Franciscus rights.  “We are thinking effective time line here,” she said.  “Prior to his incarnation as the gentle Mr. Novak, Franciscus did a lot for our American culture wielding guns during the cowboy era of television on programs such as, `Gunsmoke,’ `Have Gun Will Travel,’ `Tales of Wells Fargo,’ `The Rifleman,’ `Death Valley Days,’ `Black Saddle,” `Rawhide,’ `The Deputy.’”  Said Ms. Baker, “those shows were marvelous, everybody carried a gun and justice always prevailed.”

Talk about starting out one’s career propitiously as a future NRA icon for younger minds, Franciscus was one of the featured actors in the wonderfully named 1957 film, “Four Boys and a Gun.”  And as for maximum firepower gloriously unleashed from all sides, think of WWII: Franciscus played the explosive Pfc. Charles Harris in an episode of the  “Combat!” TV series.  In a more contemporary modern dress format Franciscus was also involved in investigating detective gunplay in the “Naked City” and “The Investigators.”   He was in “The Investigators.” immediately preceding his assumption his Mr. Novak role.

“After having done so much to advance American culture and our vital understanding that you keep the bad guys, whoever they are, in check with fire power, the pencil pushing Mr. Novak, was an enormous disappointment,” explained Ms. Baker, “but owning the Franciscus image and having available all of the pictures of him with guns we now get to invert that time line.”  Obviously triumphant, she went on to say, “We get to invert the time line and take it forward to a new action-packed super attractive future where Mr. Novak will henceforth represent what an ideal teacher should be as he helps students survive tense shootouts in his school.”

Donald Trump has agreed to appear along side the gun-toting Mr. Novak of the future in an NRA web-produced reboot of the Novak character series.  How will this even be possible?  “Mr. Novak will be CGI,” said Ms. Baker and titillating tidbits leaked to Variety say that the NRA is reaching out to famed CGI character actor Andy Sirtis or, alternatively, Guy Henry to play Novak.  Henry memorably mimicked Peter Cushing in a CGI skin version of that actor playing Grand Moff Governor Tarkin in the recent last “Rogue One” Star Wars film.

“We’d actually prefer to have Andy in the role though,” said Ms. Baker, “because of the `Planet of the Apes’ tie-in.”   (Sirtis, in CGI skin, played Ceaser, the ape revolution-leading, sometimes gun-grabbing Ceaser in the “Planet of the Apes” reboot films.  Franciscus had a central role in the original `Planet of the Apes’ series as an  astronaut arriving to rescue the earlier arriving astronaut George Taylor played by Charlton Heston.  That was in the second film of the original series with its climactic scenes in front of a destroyed NYPL 42nd Street Central Reference library ending- spoiler alert- in the human civilization destroying nuclear war of the future revealed by the previous film being topped by an even bigger Trumpian-scale nuclear planetary destruction.

“The Franciscus image thus provides a felicitous echo,” asserts Ms. Baker, because people will recall that Charlton Heston was once, himself, another iconic spokesperson for the NRA, speaking as its president when with thespian skill he viscerally infused deathly intensity into the NRA/Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms slogan “I Will Give Up My Gun When They Peel My Cold Dead Fingers From Around It.”  (Are negotiations also underway with Heston’s estate? Time may tell, but there is many a slip between the cup and the lip- The tobacco industry had also attempted to buy rights to control Franciscus’ image.)

On the precipice of nuclear planetary destruction, NRA President Charlton Heston vies with Franciscus for domination.

According to what was leaked to Variety, being talked about is a 15 minute “Mr. Novak Gets Armed” web crossover episode with Trump’s “Apprentice” where a candidate (for a national security post?) disgruntled and drawing a gun when they are “fired” by President Trump while competing with Novak will be dispatched by a faster-on-the-draw Novak.

The Florida legislation requiring nearly all teachers to be armed will further require that teachers enter their class rooms with their guns drawn.   “Otherwise, students can get the drop on them,” said Ms. Baker.  The Franciscus/Novak campaign will deploy plenty of images of Novak thus entering the classroom to normalize this so students will be accustomed to such sights even before they experience them in real life.

Alex Wind, a student speaking at the junior at  March 24 Saturday student-led day \March for Our Lives

“The student protests have actually helped inspire us,” says Ms. Baker.  Here’s how.  At the March 24 Saturday student-led day of action March for Our Lives in which 800,000 took part in more than 800 protests, Alex Wind, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School made a speech in which he said:

Together, we will use our voices to make sure that our schools, churches, movie theaters and concerts, and our streets become safer, without having them feel like prisons. If teachers start packing heat, are they going to arm our pastors, ministers and rabbis? Are they going to arm the guy scanning tickets at the movie theater? Are they going to arm the person wearing the Mickey Mouse costume at Disney? This is what the National Rifle Association wants, and we will not stand for it!

Ms. Baker’s answer is simple: “Yes, we also have legislation we are ginning up to require that pastors, ministers and rabbis and the costume characters at Disney all be armed along with the ticket takers at the entrances of all entertainment venues.”
  

As Longstreet in 1971

That’s legislation for the future.  Under the legislation currently being enacted, teachers who refuse to carry guns as required or refuse to enter classrooms with guns drawn will be subject to penalties.  Persistent and flagrant ongoing violations can, according to the new legislation, even include the death penalty.

The new NRA-drafted law also contains a fix for Florida’s death penalty.  The death penalty is legal in Florida (and at one point there was a fraternal competition between two of the Bush brothers as respective governors of Florida and Texas to see which state could legally execute the most people.)   “But there have been challenges to humanness of the death penalty and the methods of execution used,” Ms. Baker, “and our legislation fixes that, requiring that all future deaths be by firing squad using absolutely assuredly lethal AR-15 assault rifles.  If our students can tolerate being killed this way, there is no way to say that it is not a humane way to kill people we think committed crimes.”
 
Quite sensibly, not all teachers will be required to carry guns and some may even be prevented. Noting that in his last significant television series Franciscus played “Longstreet,” a disabled  insurance investigator who was blind and thus didn’t carry a gun (he sometimes defended himself with Bruce Lee Jeet Kun Do or his seeing eye dog named “Pax,” i.e. “Peace”), Baker explained that teachers who are blind will not be required to carry guns if they don’t want to, but they will be allowed to.

There is another category of teacher who might not be bearing arms.  “We are not extremists,” said Ms. Baker, going on to elaborate:

Gun control legislation has some legitimate origins, and to the extent there may be something at the core in terms of common sense that needs to be recognized we ought to be flexible.  We recognize southern traditions.  Ronald Reagan tenaciously continued to oppose gun control even after he himself was shot in a presidential assassination attempt, but he started out on the other side of the fence as a governor who fought to curtail gun ownership when it was feared that guns would be used by organizing black people like the Black Panthers.

Accordingly, teachers who are black, will not be automatically required to carry guns.  To the contrary, teachers who are black will have to apply to go through a vetting process if they wish to carry guns like the other Florida teachers.  Asked about what might happen if a gun armed blind teacher encounters a black teacher without a gun and what the blind teacher might assume about that other teacher following (or not) the new law and requirements, Ms. Baker said she was sure whatever the outcome it would be colorblind.

The NRA is hoping the effective date of the new legislation will be today, April 1st.