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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently recounted to an audience at Texas A&M University that when he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency he was responsible for “lying, cheating and stealing” to benefit the United States. “Like we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
The Secretary made the comment with a grin, noting that when he was a cadet at West Point he subscribed to the Academy honor code, which stated that “You will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do.” The largely student audience clearly appreciated and irony and laughed and applauded, though it is not clear what they made of the “glory of the American experiment.” The normally humorless Pompeo was suggesting ironically that yesterday’s Pompeo would be required to turn today’s Pompeo into the appropriate authorities for lying and also conniving at high crimes and misdemeanors while at the Agency.
We are in the battle for the soul of this nation…. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are, and I cannot stand by and watch that happen.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- King "Maha" Vajiralongkorn crowns himself monarch
on Saturday (May 4) during a three-day multimillion-dollar coronation
steeped in ancient Hindu and Buddhist rituals confirming he is Rama X,
10th in the Chakri dynasty after his father died in 2016.
In a surprise on Wednesday (May 1), Vajiralongkorn married his consort
Suthida Tidjai, a general who commanded his bodyguards, and announced
she was now Queen Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya in Thailand's
constitutional monarchy.
The coup-installed military-led government expects dissidents and
politicians to show respect during the coronation's May 4-6 ceremonies
and silence their confrontations over the disputed results of last
month's elections.
Thousands of people are expected to line Bangkok's sweltering streets
on Sunday (May 5) when Vajiralongkorn is carried on a palanquin
followed by officials and a band during a four-mile, post-coronation
procession from the Grand Palace past Buddhist temples.
The king meets foreign diplomats and government officials on Monday
Poor Pharma. Until 15 years ago, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was a right of passage for older U.S. women and Pharma raked in billions. While HRT did prevent osteoporosis, it was also found to increase the risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots, hearing loss, gall bladder disease, urinary incontinence, asthma, the need for joint replacement, melanoma, ovarian, endometrial and lung cancers, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and even dementia according to medical findings. In the first year that millions of women quit HRT in 2003, U.S. breast cancer fell seven percent and 15 percent in women with estrogen fed tumors.
May Day seems like an auspicious time to release director/co-writer/ co-producer/co-cinematographer Rachel Lears’ Sundance award-winning documentary Knock Down the House, which focuses on the primary challenges of four left-leaning women taking on establishment politicians in 2018’s Democratic primaries. Lears selected so-called “insurgents” who were backed by the liberal groups Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress, Political Action Committees that supported candidates who refused corporate and lobbyist funding.
Entertainment misinforms. Humans cannot possibly survive into a distant future that includes light-speed travel while simultaneously behaving like feral animals. Torture doesn’t work. Politicians don’t resemble Martin Sheen. The poor little United States is not threatened by irrational evil empires. Violence won’t save us from masked storm troopers, evil wizards, or whomever Boeing and Lockheed Martin armed last year.
But at least we used to pretend there was a dividing line, back before the United States made Ronald Reagan president, effectively declaring that the job was a role for an actor. Then tens of millions of morons voted for TV star Donald Trump, not because he seemed nice on TV, but because he seemed like a real jerk. Of course, I use the term “morons” in the most respectful sense and fully agree that Hillary Clinton would have been her own sort of walking catastrophe.
Although it is many moons to come, the Rise of Skywalker is by far the most anticipated film of the year. The final to this phase of the trilogy absolutely has to go out with a bang. Probably a lot of bangs, maybe some pew pews, and definitely a few zwooms…or whatever noise lightsabers make. Today we are going to be talking about some fan theories regarding the recent trailer reveal, the geekiest thing anyone could possibly be doing right now with their free time.
Here I am sleeping at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington D.C. so that a coup government led by a graduate of George Washington University a few blocks from here doesn’t take the place over or send the U.S. Secret Service (and what the hell is secret about them?) to do it, and I keep wishing that the U.S. government could find the nerve to overthrow itself for a change.
The old joke is that the U.S. government is never overthrown because it’s in the one capital that doesn’t have a U.S. embassy. Not actually a joke, of course. And there’s nothing funny about 40,000 people reportedly already killed by U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. But why can’t the U.S. government create a U.S. Embassy, or short of that, a U.S. Congress? There used to be a U.S. Congress that acted powerfully to restrain various presidents, even drove Nixon to run away. There’s nothing left of it.