An authoritarian is only as powerful as their followers. Every authoritarian in history ultimately fell, it is not sustainable yet it destroys millions of lives.
YOU need self-esteem. Yes, you read that right.
Authoritarians and propagandists thrive in fear. They want you dumb enough to think you’re a perpetual victim, while endowing you with faux bravado. And if you’re a so called “alpha” this article you’re now reading will sting, but you should be all right. Afterall alphas are not thin skinned, are they? If you get mad, then your entire alpha personality was just a veneer, and THAT is exploitable.
The best way to make a person think they are in control is by convincing them they are “superior” to whatever is it that they are supposed to be against. Enter the so-called alphas. When you see any type of enraged people who are “taking aggressive action” against others, what type of personality do you think they have? The self-proclaimed alphas. Why do you think is that? Because they are the “muscle” the authoritarian needs to push a divisive rhetoric into action.
When people are emotionally driven to action, and think they can fight their way out of it, even if that means subjugating others. That breeds a culture of dehumanizing people. They will assume the role as “protectors” for their own group, and brag about being vindictive punishers for the dissention. In fact, it is actually very easy to be an alpha, it is a primal [animalistic] instinct thing to try to assert dominance. And the flip side to an alpha is not a “beta” – it is actually “maturity.”
Think about it, if you were a school bully, how well did that play in actual grown-up society? Not well, people might act as though they are intimidated to your face, but they are really laughing behind your back. They do. And that by the way creates a lot more friction, because in the so-called alpha’s mind, they feel they are being attacked. Or worse, their dissenters are questioning their authority, which is usually also a veneer of the level of entitlement they feel towards others. “How dare they not worship the alpha?”
When this misguided level of emotion gets exacerbated, then authoritarians can move the rhetoric into action, and that happens via usually an emotionally-biased person who thinks they are right and everybody else is wrong. If you’re a so called, alpha, did my words hurt your feelings? Be honest to YOURSELF, not to me.
I wrote this article specifically on a provocative manner because I am proving a point. If you’re not compromised, then you might actually laugh and nod in agreement remembering some alpha type you tend to laugh about. If you’re an ex-alpha, then you’ll definitely laugh and appreciated the fact you’ve grown that phase.
Because that is what it is, it’s a phase. Much like teenagers have antics as they are trying to find the way they should fit into the world – the difference is that this can have regression, based on the way biases may be individually exploited. That is why a few articles ago I spoke about biases. Biases can wake up terrible feelings of inadequacy, and these can be very traumatic. That leads to “overcompensating.”
A lot of very aggressive people are simply a façade, they know they are not quite in charge, and hence they will go off the deep end if their “authority” is challenged – even a little bit. The psychology of brainwashing alpha types is actually well documented and we can speak for hours on that. But I’ll leave you with this.
There are “alpha-training” groups who will charge other “alpha-men” to the tune of $18,0000 to $20,000+ to have a bigger self-proclaimed alpha yell at them while rolling up in mud. The students are not military, no – they are business people who apparently achieving maturity was not good enough, and need somebody’s external validation.
If you need to pay to become a so called “alpha-man” – your life is not that bad, but you are probably vulnerable to exploitation. You need to learn to appreciate yourself before you try to gain validation for anybody else. We all want to fit in, but don’t let the person living between your ears tell you you’re not good enough. We are all capable of being better than the person we were yesterday.
Real life has a lot more conflict, and it takes actual maturity and temperance to succeed. This takes experience, and yes, the set backs are part of this learning process. I can tell you that as a 20-year veteran in the U.S. Navy. The “tough alpha crowd” folded like a deck of cards when push came to shove, the mature group were always more resilient. That’s true strength – authoritarians don’t like the latter. Because their volatile emotions are not exploitable as to become the muscle to a “strong leader.” HLC
Adversarial propaganda does get repeated verbatim on mainstream media, and sadly enough, also by elected leaders. According to colleagues, MTG is one of those.
Repeating adversarial regimes talking points.
Representative (R-GA 14h District) Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG)is a figure who has gained notoriety in the American political discourse. She has found herself in the middle of many controversial issues since she got in office back in 2001. Even her colleagues in the GOP have very publicly taken exception to many of her views.
Most recently, she has been the catalyst of a civil war battle between her and the incumbent Speaker of the United States House of Representative, Mike Johnson. A man who also happens to be a hardliner GOP politician who gained notoriety for some very divisive views when it comes to policy that is very much aligned with theocracy. That’s is not where MTG disagrees with – for her, Jonhson is not extreme enough on a myriad of other divisive issues.
Although MTG has been all but disavowed by her own Caucus, she is very much praised by state-sponsored media outlets which happen to be against the United States of America. Is that surprising? Not really, unless you have not been paying attention to the geopolitical climate in the last several years… and by several years I mean since well before the Soviet Union went the way of the dodo.
J. Marcelo Baqueroalvarez Authoritarianism & Propaganda The Puppet Master Tools.
The insider threat.
I’ve said this before, but it is worth repeating. There are two main categories of insider threat – a witting and unwitting insider threat. The former is the one that is very much aware they are working in favor of the adversary and are doing so wittingly. That’s bad.
The unwitting is worse, because that means they are aiding an adversary, but they are too dumb to realize they are doing so. Which one is MTG? Who knows, but there is a valid reason why the adversarial regimes prop her rhetoric, not only from her mouth, but amplifying what she says on their propaganda efforts. And I am not talking about some “liberal” – so called “woke” – soy-feed whatever epithet the right-wing folks like to disparage their opposition – This is a concern raised by the GOP leaders themselves.
And unless you’ve been living under a rock, then you would know that the GOP is struggling – and has been struggling. The internal fight and polarization inside their party is worse than ever. On one side you have the “traditional GOP” folks, and on the other extreme you have the many shades of the MAGA-universe. And there are plenty of shades for the latter. Not all MAGA are created equal, and that’s why many are now ex-MAGA. Yes, there is a civil war among MAGA folks.
Spoiler alert, it will get worse – but as these division points occur, only one group comes up on top. Who? The adversarial nations who are hell-bent in “proving” that the American system of governance is not only flawed – but ineffective. That’s what they are selling, and people like MTG are phenomenal mouth-pieces to amplify that message.
MTG might not be doing so wittingly, but there is a reason why the adversarial propagandists are propping up her misconceptions. It should not take a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Analysis to understand why. Although a lot of MTGs efforts have failed, they give credence to a different audience. An audience that sadly most people in the USA don’t understand, or care to understand that it’s paying attention to its every move.
Fortunately, some of us are paying attention and writing about it. I’ll keep adding small articles to keep awakening THIS important context by exploring each element. Just keep in mind that there is indeed a much larger context, and we’ll break it down into little, more digestible chunks. HLC
Today in America 03MAR2024 – Half Life Crisis www.halflifecrisis.com
There is so much occurring simultaneously in the national discourse that the truth tends to be muddied up. Today I bring clarity to these many issues.
This article will be broken down into a few parts in order to segment some of the craziness. It is going to be a bumpy ride, and although it will be a long article, this is the very top of the tip of the iceberg. An open mind is advisable to read these passages, because it will shed some light on information that tends to be redacted in some news outlets and from the voices of many pundits & other influencers.
The good news is that I am truly independent, therefore I have no political motivation. I am, however, very much against misinformation, because that affects us all – regardless of which side of the political spectrum we lean towards. Enjoy the ride!
Trump is not “that” rich.
In case this is the first time you see it, Trump had to admit via his attorneys that he does not have the amount of cash he used brag to the entire world he had. For many of us, realizing that Trump was nowhere as rich as he claimed to be it is not surprising. It might however finally dissuade a lot of his loyal followers in the MAGA base to finally leave him. The reason is because many MAGA followers just tolerated his antics because they thought he was a multi billionaire.
In case you were not aware, Trump recently lost two separate civil cases and was ordered to pay several million dollars in compensation. Most of his supporters still think it is a “witch hunt” perpetrated by President Biden. Of course that isn’t the case, and these problematic cases of sexual assault and fraud he was found liable in two separate courts, occurred well before the Biden Presidency or the Trump Presidency [for that matter] even started. Here is a quick synopsis of these two cases.
Both of these cases were handled by his attorney Alina Habba, who has been touted by her peers [meaning other attorneys] as highly incompetent. Whatever the case, she is to my knowledge the only attorney who has cost her client almost half a billion dollars.
Trump’s Civil Fraud Case.
Trump was fund liable from swindling many investors through the span of several years. Trump was directed to pay $355 million in penalties plus interests. But the total figure starts at $454 million because it also includes people in Trumps orbit, to include his two elder sons. The interest for the payments Trump owes each passing day he does not pay is $87,502 – and by the way the verdict took place on February 16, 2024. So, this figure just keeps climbing more and more.
This case of course found out that he was lying about his wealth and that he overinflated his assets to get loans, and undervalued them when it was time to pay taxes. The fact is that if he is unable to have this interest rate from rapidly accruing, that on its own is enough to ascertain that he simply does not have the cash to pay, or even to appeal the case. Trump said he was going to appeal, but he needs to post the money upfront to guarantee he will pay if he loses again. Which will likely be the case.
The fact is that neither banks, nor attorneys are lining up to support Trump. Trump also asked to pay only just north of $100 million [or a fraction of what it is required] to appeal. That was denied to him as it would have been denied to anybody in a similar situation. Trump went onto making some unusual fund-raising events, which included selling some hideous $400 golden shoes and a $100 cologne that by the way sold-out, but won’t be making it to their customers hands until the Summer.
Another thing that sprouted, even if by proxy, was at least one Go-fund me campaign, and people were contributing to pay the legal fees of this billionaire. There seems also to be some course of action of utilizing GOP campaign funds for his legal troubles. But my understanding is that would be highly illegal. Which by the way, there is another case under that premise – this time for paying hush money to a porn star.
Bottomline, Trump said via his attorneys that if he pays the entire amount [even as a bond], which is close to half a billion dollars penalty, he would have to start selling some of his real state. So, let’s put that in perspective. Trump was ordered to pay that amount because he was found that he defrauded a bunch of people. You know, as in taking their money, and now he does not have the money. In other words, it was spent – not properly invested to grow. This realization might finally be what turns off some of his base who considered him a financial genius.
Trump sexual abuse case.
On May 9, 2003 Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Trump was directed to pay $5 million. But this case is a lot more nuisance than Trump simply being found liable for sexual assault, which under the New York statutes it is just different language that in fact found Trump liable of raping Carroll. Yes, they found and were able to provide proof that Trump is a rapist.
What some people might not realize about this case is that the statute of limitations has already expired, and although Carroll was unable to go against Trump back in the 90’s – remember, these were very different times. We have come a long way to being able to speak truth to power. For some of us who were alive in the 90’s I can assure you that the world has moved forward by leaps and bounds, yet there are many who want to return back to the most short-sighted blunders in those years.
However, as the story re-surfaced, Trump started bad mouthing Carroll and made some very defamatory remarks against her. The case went to court, Trump kept making some very low brow and insulting remarks in true Trump fashion style against Carroll – many of these remarks from very prominent platforms. You know, double down and triple down. So, the case ended up going to court for defamation. This of course backfired on Trump, because not only he was stuck with a $5 million award payable to Carrol, but he also got all his sexual abuse past come to light. It did not end there.
As expected, Trump was not happy at all with this, therefore he double down, and disparaged Carroll again. And this once again backfired. Remember, the case was already settled that Trump raped Carroll. Adding to the miscalculation, Trumps attorney, Alina Habba managed to make things a lot worse for Trump, turning this $5 million original award into a whopping $83.3 million award, as Carroll won her case for defamation again. It is very likely that Trump was the master mind directing Habba to say whatever is it that she said in the trial. Of course, that was not a good strategy.
One thing is clear, Trump has not paid a dime yet for either one of these millionaire awards against him. Which makes you think, if he really was a billionaire, paying off and then appealing could be a lot easier than accruing all this additional debt in interests, not to mention all the negative media attention that it puts on his supposed fortune. For now, only some of his most fervent MAGA supporters are still onboard and will pay their hard-earned money to help a billionaire pay his legal obligations. Food for thought.
Credit the link below to the Associated Press (AP) who is tracking Trump’s many criminal and civil cases. They have a huge team of journalists who can do that in real time; it is only me writing for the Half Life Crisis site at this time.
Hunter Biden handed GOP House Representatives their own butts.
In a different part of our bizarre political discourse, the GOP have been hell-bent in an unsuccessful effort to impeach President Biden. Bottomline, they have zero evidence. If the evidence to impeach Biden existed it would have been plastered all over the planet, and there would be non-stop coverage of it. That has not happened, nor will it, because what the GOP members are alluding towards simply does not exist.
In an effort to find some compromising links to Joe Biden, the GOP has been very adamant on pursuing dead-end leads related to the President’s son, Hunter Biden. For context, Hunter Biden is a recovering addict, and in the past, he had done some shenanigans, and has gotten in some trouble before. However, he has always made a conscientious effort to keep his father out of the spotlight, because he understands how important this is to his father’s public service.
For context Hunter Biden was still a young boy when Biden was elected to his first term in Congress. Fast forward, there have been a lot of allegations trying to tie Hunter Biden to his father. One of those sources was a former FBI informant who also was recently arrested because he was working with Russian intelligence in a concerted effort to interfere in US politics. And yes, that was the GOP’s star witness.
For some time, the GOP have been trying to corner Hunter Biden in many insidious ways. Even having sexually explicit images of him shown in the House Floor by Georgia Representative Majorie Taylor Greene. Yes, that happened! She showed what could be best described as revenge porn showing nude photos of Hunter Biden engaging in sexual intercourse during an official hearing.
And to add insult to injury, the GOP controlled House of representatives wanted to have Hunter Biden testify in a closed-door session – even though they had made this matter public to the entire country as the story of the century. Well, this was originally rejected, and Biden even showed up to Congress when they were deliberating about holding him in contempt of Congress – yet the GOP rejected the option of Hunger to testify in front of the whole country right there and there. You know, calling their bluff.
Fast forward to last week, and Hunter Biden did show up to a closed-door session, and handed the House GOP butts to them. The transcript is pretty long, but it is worth reading. The GOP Representatives tried to spin it as though it was a win, but for anybody with a 4th grade reading comprehension, you would be able to identify what the reality of the situation is all about. And the fact that it was political theater came full circle.
All this waste of taxpayer money and congressional man hours was nothing but a gigantic waste of time many of us realized years ago. There is no actual evidence to impeach Biden.
I recommend reading the entire transcript on the link below. It’s pretty long, but it is worth it. It might make you mad, or laugh in a tragically hilarious manner.
Reproductive rights are being threatened in the country.
You’ve probably been familiar with the overturn of Roe vs Wade by the Supreme Court that occurred in 2022. This is of course one of Trump’s supposedly proudest moments. And yes, this was possible because the three Supreme Court Justices confirmed under Trump were very much in favor of overturning Roe vs Wade – even though they denied during their confirmation hearings to be inclined to do exactly that.
Just like many of us realized that they were going after Roe vs Wade making abortions illegal and a lot more restrictive depending on each state – the situation was not likely going to end there. How do we know? Because the indicators of moving a certain “theocratical” political agenda has been plastered on the wall all along.
There is a certain group of “Christian Nationalists” – which is not the same as Christians from all stripes. In other words, not every Christian is a Christian Nationalist. Many Christians actually disavow Christian Nationalists as extremists who happen to use Christianity as a platform to push a political agenda. And Christian Nationalists are not shy about expressing that they want THEIR version of Christianity to be the rule of the land. In other words, a theocracy based on their particular interpretation. And yes, many of them are elected leaders.
For better or worse, this is actually a very unpopular stance – and in each and every one of the last several local, state, and national elections, the so called “pro-life” candidates have been defeated or severely underperformed at the ballot. Why is that? Because “Pro-Choice” does not equal “Pro-abortion.” In other words, the majority of Americans understand the difference, and how each case is unique. Further, they understand that the life and safety of the mother could be at severe risk with certain pregnancy complications.
And of course, most people are not onboard with forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to full term, if the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. Especially considering that some young women get raped while they are still children themselves. For example, should a 13-year-old be forced to carry to term the child of her rapist? When Roe vs Wade was overturned, it now makes it illegal for this 13-year-old not be forced to carry a rapist child to term. Think about that for a second – what if that 13-year-old young lady was YOUR child?
The fact is that what we are observing is authoritarian rhetoric disguised as morality under theocratic rules. This situation is running rampant in America, and it has been largely normalized. Why? Because there are Christians all over the place, even though many fail to realize that their denomination is one of a few thousands in the world. Yes, there are several Christian denominations, and they don’t agree in a lot of their doctrines – hence they have their own denomination.
Although many Christian denominations agree on certain points, there is a lot more than they disagree with. Want an example? Sure, how similar are the doctrines between the Jehovah Witnesses and the Latter-Day Saints? How similar or different are the rituals between Catholics and Pentecostals? How about the guys who handle dangerous snakes during service, or those who worship in the nude?
Yes, those are all just a few examples of devoted Christians. Would you go to the nude service or the venomous snake-handling service? So, under that logic, then you might not be ok if “a particular” denomination of Christianity becomes the theocratic rule of the land. That is why there is separation of church and state I the USA. Also, why churches get a tax exemption as long as they stay off the political discourse. Although we all know that many churches are not only violating that law, but they are also very cavalier about pushing politics from the pulpit.
Some states have a higher concentration of politically charged religious following. One of these places is Alabama, where recently, In-Vitro Fertilization or IVF is under attack, because they’re considering the cells in a petri dish being already a person. Yes, this IVF has JUST become an issue – just a few days ago. And it is taking traction on other states – mostly red states. And if you think this is not expanding think again.
And by the way, there are many Christians who used IVF in order to become parents. Now, this IVF procedure is in jeopardy because some people interpret their scriptures differently, and want to force everybody to interpret them in the same manner. And yes, it is affecting also law-abiding Christians and non-Christians.
If you are a Christian – especially, if you’re a Christian, you might want to realize that there is a particular denomination which wants to take over the way YOU worship. Yes, I am serious. This is happening. If you want to call them false prophets, or swindlers or opportunists, that’s YOUR choice. And keep in mind that there is a segment of people who use religion as a way to prevent you from having ANY choice in the near turn.
For example, did you know that there is a bill being proposed in Virginia right now that is endorsed mostly by state-GOP legislators who want to make it a lot harder to get contraception over the counter? So, think about this for a moment, there are people hell bent in not only limiting your options should a person get an unwanted pregnancy, but they are also making it harder to not get pregnant in the first place!
In other words, they are somehow working towards legislating about sexual intercourse between consenting adults. I wish I was being hyperbolic, but just like Roe vs Wade and other indicators of theocracy working to replace our democratic system, this very much seems to be in the horizon. Of course, that most people might not want to see it as such, because when we talk about religion it tends to hit a nerve on a great segment of the population… because they think it is singling THEM out.
Well, that is not the case, the reality is that a few are trying to impose their version of religion onto all of us while using the very same religious protections to hide their agenda, which is to ultimately negate religious freedom to the rest of the country.
There is a lot more to explore on this topic, and I plan on writing a full article and perhaps other additional content on this, because it will become a lot more significant sooner than later. And if you think there are not people in high positions pushing for this to become the norm, think again.
The Supreme Court is perceived as MAGA-biased.
Lately the United States Supreme Court has been perceived as biased by a very large segment of Americans. The reality is that there is an evident power dynamic difference. If you have been paying attention, you’ll know that the great majority of the justices are very conservative. And as I mentioned, three of them were recently confirmed during Trump’s term.
This is a good time to bring current Minority Senate Leader, Mitch McConnell who was the de-facto catalyst to pack the court with highly conservative, and MAGA friendly justices. And McConnel is also the person responsible for denying President Obama from adding his nominated Justice to the Supreme Court, because that was during Obama’s last year in office. Yet, McConnel pushed a conservative judge in the last year of Trump’s office.
For any of us paying attention, we realized this tactic from the start. He was going to pack the courts, not just the supreme court but a lot of other courts in the country – to get a higher level of political advantage with like-minded people. Some might say that is an unfair assertion, yet the proof to this assessment has come through via many cases that have gravitated towards conservative goals. IVF is one such case. There are plenty more, but not many of those cases make it to the national headlines.
But the scrutiny of the conservative Justices has also gathered more momentum after their decision to hear the case for Trump’s eligibility to be in the Colorado ballot. This of course will put a delay on a resolution for other cases that are related to why the State of Colorado supreme court found that Trump’s election interference and role for the January 6 insurrection makes him ineligible to run for office.
And if you think for a few seconds about this concern to have Trump back in office, it makes perfect sense. Trump has 91 criminal charges spanning several court cases, has been very vocal about some very divisive rhetoric, he was found to be a fraud and a rapist – and that is just a fraction of the many red flags anybody who is paying attention sees about Trump. Hence, most Americans voted against him in 2020. The difference is that he has alienated a lot of his base from that time. And a lot of his supporters have not been afforded the full story either… so they might jump ship once the truth also reaches their eyes and ears.
Well, unsurprisingly the Justices who were appointed by Trump and other conservative justices are very much onboard with seeing Trump to run for another term, despite the myriad of criminal and civil cases against him. And this is not me – as the author of this article – trying to put the integrity of the US Supreme Court in question – as far as how objective they are when it comes to political discourse. This is the common consensus from many people reporting on this topic.
But what I will say is that the rulings and the precedent for each case do raise a lot of questions. And one of the fears most people have is that there is a clear bias towards one segment of the population and a disenfranchisement of another – an even larger segment of the same population. The proof is that the most “conservative” doctrines have not been popular at the ballot. It is especially noteworthy that the MAGA segment of the Republican party is dwindling. Even though, many remaining MAGAs are still very vocal.
I linked this article to tell you more about the particular case regarding Trump’s eligibility to hold office. Credit to the New York Times. Even if you don’t agree with them, fact check them with media sources from all political sides – you’ll see the pattern soon enough.
Conflicts continue to ramp up, and they are likely related.
And with the political discourse, we also have to realize that we have a very real linkage to the larger geopolitical stance of the United States on the world stage. What we have to remember is that what happens in the USA resonates with the rest of the world with ripple effects that are mind-bending to some, and very clearly evident to others who can see the links to these events from a different vantage point.
What does that mean? It means that even the situations who seen tangentially related at best, or totally unrelated are very much part of the same construct. They are just not as evident when seeing it from a particular vantage point. And that would not be a person’s fault, they are just not afforded that vantage point to see the big picture.
For an illustrative example let’s say you’re in a valley, and you are at the bottom of the valley inside a forest. You might not be able to see the mountains around you, or even what is just a few yards from your vantage point. But if you climb the mountain, you’ll have a much larger view of the valley and where everting seems to be located. From there, you will be able to further explore with ease each area because you will have a better idea of how the terrain is laid out.
In geopolitics it is very much the same. For people who are in their own echo chambers, or political bubbles – they will not be able to see how the events are laid out and how they relate to one another. The way you can ascend this illustrative mountain is by understanding context. This context raises your awareness of what is going on, and from there you can see the road leading to each event. Keep in mind that each stage is going to have an inherited level of complexity, and it is meant to discourage people from keeping on climbing.
When I wrote my book AUTHORITARIANISM & PROPAGANDA The Puppet Master Tools, I provided some tools on how to see this context in ways that will help you climb to a better vantage point. The geopolitical realm is complex, and it is also very contentious. And the end result of many adversarial nations is to negate the USA from remaining the premiere nation in the world – and give an open avenue for adversarial regimes to take the USA’s place. This has been happening for a while, and they will succeed unless we realize what its going on under our own noses.
I’ve said it before and it is worth repeating. There are insider threats integrated within the confines of the United States of America, and in many countries that are allied or partnered with the USA. Insider threats come in two big categories:
1. Witting Insider Threats:
These are people who are performing actions and supporting adversarial narratives and carrying out their desires willingly. In other words, they are very cognizant that what they are doing goes against the USA and its influence in the world. Even if they disguise themselves as patriotic.
2. Unwitting insider Threat
These are people who are too stupid to realize they are doing everything the witting insider threat is also doing, but they are just not aware they are complicit. This latter one is a lot more dangerous than the first one, because they are easily manipulated.
And it is worth repeating that there are a lot of people in Capitol Hill and in other prominent platforms who are repeating and parroting those adversarial talking points verbatim! I will be dedicating specific content to identifying how this works and how to defend against it. Remember that these insider threats tend to be wolves in sheep’s clothing. They will seem patriotic and even probably drape themselves in the regalia that screams USA – but they are repeating the points from their adversaries.
An easy way to see if that is the case is by looking at state-sponsored propaganda and news from an adversarial nation. How do you know it might be an adversarial nation? Well, if it is solely run by the state, then that means that the freedom of press is non-existent, and all narratives must concur with the government or be silenced. So that is already a good pointer, because the USA has freedom of speech [at least for now], and you’re able to speak your mind without the government coming to violently retaliate against you and everything you’ve ever loved.
We still have this freedom we are very much taking for granted and there are a lot of nations who have recently lost it. They didn’t pay attention to the same indicators I am mentioning, and it was likely there was somebody just like me trying to raise awareness, and he or she ended up screaming into a void. I’m trying to change that trend, and fortunately there are many who see what I am seeing – we are just not communicating together effectively. That is what I want to change through my writing. HLC
HLC Muller Report www.halflifecrisis.com American History
The Muller report was a litmus test on how cognitive dissidence can be exploited for political purposes. Many people are still confused about its importance.
The confusion perdures to this day.
The Muller Report is names after the Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Robert Muller, who was a prominent career law enforcement professional at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States of America. He was appointed to conduct a thorough investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.
Among the targets of the investigation, was included the recently elected U.S. President Donald J. Trump. The reason was because there were credible allegations that his campaign had close unduly communications with the Russian Federation, and that his campaign conspired together with Russian operatives to get an advantage against Trump’s presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Russia stated on record they favored Trump over Clinton as President of the United States.
Before I move on, please find below the link to the entire Muller Report, as released to the public. Please keep in mind that some of the released Muller Report [enclosed] to the public have been redacted for reasons of National Security.
Mueller Report Article -Report on the investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election – www.halflifecrisis.com
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is worth mentioning that when citing Russia in this report, and on this article, it is not referring to the entire country of Russia – nor it is a so called “Rusophobic” attack. But unfortunately, the people involved in this report were from Russia. Any country involved in a similar fashion would have been cited on a consistent basis if they were under the scope of the investigation Mueller conducted. It is worth noting also that most Russian people (like most people around the world) are actually super nice, and they might or might not have a say, knowledge, or condone what happens outside their immediate purview.
You are welcome to read the entire report now (all 400+ pages), or after you finish this article. We will be touching upon some of the important takeaways from the report. The report itself is written in legal jargon, hence for some people it might seem counterintuitive to understand what Muller is actually trying to say. That’s the nature of the beast, legal writing is very different than normal everyday vernacular.
For this article I will be using down-to Earth vernacular to ensure it is better understood. And I said, “better understood” – because in legal terms words and context have a much encompassing terminology. That is why it takes years of going to law school and passing a bar exam to navigate the vernacular. To put in context the bar exam alone takes about 12 hours and it is extremely grueling. Some of us (who are not attorneys, but) due to the nature of our jobs just so happen to be acquainted with that language to “read it” – but not to “write it” – if that makes sense. E.g. You might be able to distinguish the difference between a high-quality and low-quality steak when you eat it, it is a whole different ballgame cooking it.
If you do end up reading the full report (which I recommend), it is best if you read it in little chunks, and with an open mind. The report is obviously very well written, but for those unfamiliar with the lingo, it will be interpreted like “scripture” (as in a bible or religious text) – and create a misperception that it is subject to some interpretations – especially if a person has a particular bias. However, biases are not the case when writing the report – Mueller himself was a Republican. But it is possible that some people might find ambiguity. Remember, this report was not meant to be read by the people, but rather by legal experts.
This in no way is demeaning to the general public, it is just part of the area of expertise needed for that particular specialty. Just like a bartender might have some specific language they use for some of their mixology, or just like us Sailors have a very specific vernacular when we talk about Navy stuff, or just how mathematicians communicate with complex formulas. Somebody outside those specialties might find it confusing if seeing it from the outside in.
Same thing with the Muller Report. It has a specific language, crafted by experts in that field. Fortunately, just like any cryptic language out there, there is a key to understanding in everyday terms what the intent and purpose for that report means to the general audience. There is a reason why I put this in context. You will see what I mean by that as you continue reading this article.
The Muller Report is inheritably complex, because it addressed a very complex issue. Further, it was unprecedented because it was the first time a sitting U.S. President was involved in the middle of this type of controversy. And of course, the environmental factors (not as in weather) in the country, particularly on political divisiveness – was making an already incendiary issue all the more volatile. There were a lot of entities who had a lot to lose based on the findings of this report. And those who had a lot to lose were both inside and outside the United States of America.
What does this mean? The Muller Report was never just about Trump, it was a lot bigger than that. It was about the possibility that third nation was interfering with the American Electoral process, and potentially getting away with it. Trump was largely anecdotal, but had to play also a center role for the investigation because he just so happened to be the President of these United States.
Understanding the Report’s Context.
The Mueller report was not about finding “Collusion” – why? Because Collusion is not a crime. It was about finding conspiracy to undermine an American Electoral Process. However, as Trump became extremely combative, and largely [on the Right-Wing of politics], attacks against Muller started to percolate, the scope of the investigation had no choice but to add instances of obstruction of justice to the mix. Cause and Effect.
What does that mean? Let me illustrate with an example. Let say person “X” is accused of beating up his spouse. An investigation into domestic abuse will start taking place. So, let’s say that while this domestic abuse investigation is going on, person “X’ decides to antagonize and threaten the police officers with violence, and incites others to antagonize and threaten these police officers – as they are conducting the domestic abuse investigation. What do you think is going to happen? If you assessed that an additional charge will be added to the domestic abuse charge, then you will be correct.
Further, antagonizing the police and threatening with violence while they are investigating domestic abuse – is not helping person “X” case, is it? Use the same analogy, but just change the charges and names, and that is what happened during the Muller Report. The fact that Trump and is acolytes were attacking, disparaging, and denigrating the character of Robert Muller, made it very evident that Muller likely found a lead Trump and his acolytes found very problematic (against them).
Robert Muller himself got death threats, much like many other Trump dissenters had endured in the last several years. Especially those with a platform. But the death threats normally come from a Trump acolyte, or somebody who feel vindicated to do so in their [Trump’s] base. I should emphasize that issuing death threats onto anybody is a crime. And yes, it is a crime no matter if you do that face-to-face, by email, by social media, or any other method of communication.
And bear this in mind because of the wide context of the report. Remember, the report is a snap-shot in time, but the significance of this report is a timeless tool about glaring vulnerabilities in the very fabric of American society. And yes, the exploitation of divisive vulnerabilities is designed to be like that – divisive and confusing. That is why I said that in the beginning it became a litmus test regarding our political stability.
Finding Trump guilty in the Muller Report
The official name for the Muller Report is “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election” – this report encompasses two volumes, and spans for 448 pages. In other words, the scope of the investigation was to find the facts about Russian Interference, which is not necessarily the same as an investigation about Trump, although Trump was certainly a significant factor in the entire situation – because Russia was favoring Trump over Clinton.
For us to understand the significance of this report, we have to understand that using semantics to fight the merits of the issue is not a compelling argument. It is a lot more abstract than that, because we are dealing with a strategic-level adversary levering personnel near to the sitting President of the United States, in order to push their [foreign country’s] agenda. This report is not about finding collusion, it is about connecting conspiracy behind the mechanics for which the favoring for Trump turned into action favorable to Trump.
Hope this is making sense so far, because it is about to get more abstract. It is designed to be that way. The adversary is not going to put this complex issue in a black & white, Fifth-Grade level of understanding – instead, this topic is an all-stars varsity multi-level strategy being played upon the US via its own political intricacies. Again, it is designed to be highly complex, and that is why the actual merits of the case will seem counterintuitive to a great swath of the population. Again, this report was not meant to be read by the general public, it was meant to be read by the top Attorney in the Country – The Attorney General.
And this is an important distinction. Because Muller and his team had to be impartial in their investigation. Hence, Muller (who was in charge of the investigation) was not going to declare “Guilty” or “Innocent” – among other intricacies we’ll talk about – that was not his role. His role was to find facts, write about them, and pass to the Attorney General to (for a lack of a better word) decipher what was presented to him on this report, and for him to make a recommendation as the top law enforcement person in the Federal Government at the time.
And at this particular juncture is where politics started to get from ugly to very dangerous. For as long as we can remember in the American discourse, the partisan political climate has become more and more polarized. It was not designed to be that way – it was meant to give a voice from different points of view; but through the years demagogs and other special interest powers have created a wider division among politicians. All this division is extremely convenient to regimes leading nations who have poised themselves as adversaries against America.
Some politicians (hopefully unwittingly) tend to play and parrot propagandistic points that are specifically designed to polarize America more and more. The reason for the division is incidental at best, but certainly politics is a very visceral vehicle that gets people enticed to perform actions that can very well go against their own best interests. They just don’t realize it does, because it is designed to make those victims feel like vindicated heroes, whilst making them believe they are the smartest people in the room. Sadly, that is a very prolific manipulation tool.
The damage created to discredit the Muller Report is causing negative effects even today! And that report was released in 2019. For that reason, it is worth understanding what the political climate was back during those days. And the short answer is, that the ENTIRE U.S. Government, all three branches at the time were Republican. The Executive power (President), The Legislative power (Congress with the House & the Senate), and the Judicial power with a conservative majority.
If you were a Democrat, you had no chance to push any legislation at that time. That of course changed in the very next midterm election when the House Flipped to the Democrats, and the Republicans lost the majority. But by the time this report came over, it was all Republican Controlled. This was very important for many political reasons, and of course gave a very high advantage to Trump as far as how the narrative would be controlled to the rest of the Republican political base.
Sadly, that means that if Trump was found guilty of any wrong doing, there was a snow ball chance in hell of a probability the GOP (Republicans) would even hint on giving Trump any level of accountability, let alone prosecute him, recommend impeachment – or any punitive action whatsoever for that matter. Why? Because that would be political suicide, that is why.
Politics are strategic by nature, and sadly this strategy tends to leave constituents out of the equation. A shrewd politician would be able to plan several steps ahead and bamboozle a base of voters to believe a false narrative with little to no scrutiny. Yes, it is designed to be that way. A happy constituent tends to be one who feels their political leader is reading their minds, and doing their will – as faithful representatives of their democratic process in Capitol Hill. You could argue, THAT is EXACTLY why they were elected in the first place to do, right?
So, what does any of this have anything to do with the Muller Report? A lot actually, that is why I say it is abstract, and might even see tangential. Again, it is designed to be that way. When we look at the Muller Report there is not one page which reads “guilty” except to demonstrate that somebody pleaded as such to previous proceedings – for example, George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. Papadopoulos was very close in Trump’s orbit – once he became inconvenient, Trump disavowed him.
Other big names in Trump’s orbit included Gates, Manafort, and Cohen. The later was also known as “Trump’s Fixer” and better known for the case involving porn-star actress Stormy Daniels – when she engaged in what was described as a hilariously short and unpleasant, though consensual sex encounter with Trump – when his wife Melania was staying home with their still infant son Baron. And I just want to add this part about the [if you can even call it] affair (which is factual by the way – however hilariously short). Because it adds to Trump’s character, and adds to why the overarching scope of his investigation is so important. Lack of character is vulnerable to exploitation – and having the President of the United States of America having an exploitable vulnerability is very dangerous for the country.
Another big player is Michael Flynn, who also pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about talks he head with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Note that in every mention of “guilty” was for already a person in Trumps orbit who have already been convicted. It is important to pay attention to the fact that these individuals were very close to Trump – that is problematic. Who wins if the President of the United States of America has people who have pleaded guilty to some very problematic allegations? Regimes who are adversarial to America, that is who wins when this happens.
Letting Trump get away without prosecution, despite the findings of the Muller Report is what has prompted a lot of the cognitive dissidence that has endured to this day. And this is really the crux of the matter. Cognitive dissidence occurs when we let our biases control the narrative despite the facts. There is always a lot more to the empirical facts behind the superficial context of a situation. Some of the facts can certainly be obscured by misinformation, and lack of understanding of the full context.
In other words, when we are presented with a situation out of context, and we don’t have enough datapoints to ascertain the validity of those facts, then our assertion to those facts will be flawed. Hence the correct answer will feel counterintuitive, despite the facts being against their core argument. Again, it is designed to be that way. And a lot of people have fallen into that trap. It is not really their fault; a trap is designed to capture those unsuspecting souls. Much like a con artist tends to be charming and engaging. The difference is that with propaganda this is executed at a much larger scale and level of complexity.
Was Trump found Guilty?
Yes, he was found guilty of conspiracy of getting aid from a foreign government to help him with the election, and of obstructing justice and making all kinds of public acts of intimidation that among other things included death threats to Muller himself. The key word is “found” – that is not the same as “declared” guilty. Doing so gets into a semantic game that fosters cognitive dissidence.
This is how they differ. Finding instances of guilt does not necessarily mean that a person is going to be held accountable. For example, if you’re driving 20+ MPH over the speed limit, but there are no COPs around to pull you over, and issue you a citation for reckless driving – then you’re not getting accountability. You (should) know that what you did is highly illegal and can put you in a pumpkin suit, and there are several witnesses to your misdemeanor. Mainly every other car that you zoomed by – but they don’t have the authority to pull you over and give you a citation. But it is very obvious to all witnesses that you were breaking the law.
Somebody being declared guilty, that means that somebody who has the jurisdictional power to give you accountability is acting upon those findings. Following in the example, if a cop does pull you over and issues you a citation – the cop can start the accountability process, but not finish it. It would be up to a judge (in traffic court) to give the verdict on the infraction. Some judges might be lenient and let the speeder go with a warning, others might impose a heavy fine, others might send the driver straight to jail. I’ve seen cases like this all the time – it largely depends on how repentant the person placed in front of the judge is.
So, let’s bring this into context. Mueller (as the example being the cop on the above example) was gathering the information and writing the ticket. But it was going to be up to the attorney General (as the judge in the previous example) whom was required to make the determination about if the president was found guilty or not. The Attorney General at the time was Bill Bahr, and he gave the press a very misleading version of what Mueller described in the findings. The point being that Bahr likely wanted to try to make this problem disappear. Particularly because of the heavy political baggage it carried. Finding Trump guilty would make the Republican party implode.
How so? Well, the obvious thing is that if Trump was found guilty, then a lot of legal actions – none of which were convenient, nor had a precedent, would inevitably snowball out of control. There was a lot of appetitive for the entire report to be released. The GOP fought tooth and nail against it, but eventually it came out. But it took a long time. During that time there were countless attacks against Mueller himself, and many more death threats not only to him, but to other people who were in favor of releasing this document. So, the fact that you can read it (even on this site) was a gigantic undertaking that was being prevented by the highest levels of government at that time.
There was an important caveat. Because Trump was a sitting President – regardless if he was indeed guilty – he was NOT to be prosecuted. Those were the guidelines at the time, because it was meant to protect against people from attacking a President as a political eruption… with the pretense that the President was indeed an innocent person. Well, this is not very much the case in the Muller Report. Although he does not call Trump with the words “guilty” he did say that he was not exculpated from wrongdoing. And I said before, he was to present the facts, not to issue a guilty or innocent plea. But rather point if there was culpability. There was gargantuan evidence of guilt.
Using a “big word” such as not “exculpated” probably muddied the water – even though it is an accurate term. “Exculpated” means “acquitted” – Trump was not acquitted, if we put it in non-thesaurus terms. Muller went on to say that if Trump was not a sitting President he would have indeed been prosecuted. So, what does that mean? It meant that as long as Trump was President, then he was able to run that suspended guilt until he left office. But once he was gone, then accountability would follow. What would Trump’s next logical move be then?
Obviously, it was in Trump’s best interest to stay in power as long as possible! For one, because the statute of limitations would run out on this – and besides he did so much other crazy s—t after this event that the Muller Report will seem like small potatoes in comparison. But that does not mean it is any less significant, because this started a snowball effect for a lack of accountability to any sitting President.
Let’s talk about this snowball effect, this is a non-exhaustible list.
1. It forced the GOP to truly play ball and become Trump acolytes by choosing party over anything else Trump was able to get away with. Doing otherwise would be political suicide.
2. It empowered other adversarial nations to flood the USA with propaganda. The same type of divisive propaganda that has continued ever since – because it proved to be effective.
3. Fostered cognitive dissidence. It is convenient for other nations when we are divided, and if there is a communication breakdown. This first step was a proof of concept for adversarial nations as far as how people get lost in semantics rather than understanding the overall context.
4. The enemy is hidden in plain sight – who is the biggest enemy? Our own biases are being manipulated by our own misperceptions. It is designed to look black & white – but in reality, it is a very dynamic gradient. Hence, even people with good intentions will not see the true depth of the issue – it is designed to be that way – much like an illusionist only shows you what they want you to see, but the mechanics of the trick are out of sight to the general audience.
5. If Trump was able to get away with this, then he was going to continue pushing boundaries until he would get push back. He sure did, and hence he got impeached twice – and he is currently facing 90+ criminal cases, and a myriad of civil cases. Accountability started after he left the office – and the investigation into the merits for these cases already started the process before he left the presidency.
6. A lot of people got turned off by Trump, but also a whole bunch of them got ignited their new found passion for Trump. The Republican partly itself is very fragmented. Some of Trump’s more vocal supporters are Republicans themselves; though the hate and attacks from MAGA Republicans are often directed to more “obvious” challengers – which are the Democrats.
7. Trump started a very dangerous precedent that made people around the world distrust the United States of America. Who do you think wins when America gets isolated from NATO or other partner nations? It is not the USA; it is the countries who want to get the USA to lose its primacy in the world. By getting away from interfering with our political candidates’ process, this helps other countries who do not like America to perceive that the US candidates are for Sale.
8. Propaganda Points from other countries flooded the political discourse, and created an enormous social engineering campaign to find out which minds are more exploitable and obedient to Anti-American talking points, disguised as ultra-patriotic. Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron – that is why I say it seems counterintuitive to many. I wrote an entire book about it [AUTHORITARIANISM & PROPAGANDA The Puppet Master Tools], because it is affecting us all.
9. The entire world was watching the proceedings about the Muller Report, and caused a worldwide mistrust in the American legislative process. If the USA is not considered a reliable intrinsic arbiter of justice, then the rest of the world will start seeking for a “better alternative” to follow. There is no shortage of adversarial nations who want to set that standard. And if the USA is not holding their leaders accountable, then that becomes the norm for the rest of the world. Like it or not, the USA can either set the standard for equal accountability under the law, or yield that option to any other nation who wants to impose their political agendas onto the rest of the planet.
10. Interpreting the Muller Report on “semantics” rather than substance is a very fertile ground for Information Operations campaigns by adversarial nations. In other words, they get to realize how naïve particular segments of the population are based on their lack of reading comprehension – and turn them into obedient parroting assets. More importantly, by providing these out of context talking points, they will feel vindicated as though they have “won” a battle of wits with somebody else – when in reality they have not been afforded the entire context. Plenty of people who are cynical about complex issues, but get hung up on semantics, are very much off-the mark on the actual substance of the matter. And yes, that is extremely convenient and exploitable by adversarial nations.
Moving Forward, and Deprograming Compromised Minds.
It might sound idealistic, but there is a way to straighten up this slew of propagandistic campaigns pouring over the USA. I use the Muller Report as an example, but there are hundreds if not thousands additional examples linked to Trump alone. But he is not the only one who enjoys a cult following, many of his acolytes also benefit from that clout. And even those who say that they don’t support him could very well be misled by thinking that “giving him a perceived fair” shot is a valid argument – when in reality, Trump was indeed guilty – hence, giving a “perceived fair shot” after he already has tilted the system on this favor is in fact a win for America’s adversaries.
What do I mean by that? Lately, as I became an author, I had to start learning the intricacies of the social media world. Not that I am super stoke about that, and I only hang out on the different platforms whenever I have some downtime. Which is not that much time actually. At this point in time, I am either checking my social media accounts while I am taking mini breaks during actual stuff I need to do in the computer – of if I so happen to be in a waiting room – as I have to sit and stay put prior to a scheduled appointment.
But no, debating people on Twitter (X) in 280 characters or less, or in Threads in 500 characters or less is not the only thing I have to do with my day. Especially if the cognitive dissidence from somebody drowning in a glass of water that they poured themselves off proves it is too much of a waste of time for me to spend my scarce time dealing with them. I’ve met all kinds of people, from super nice human beings, to well-intentioned confused people, to incredibly nasty individuals. During the less desirable interactions, I am afforded the opportunity to use it as a metric on how this cognitive dissidence has taken a foothold in the propagandistic realm.
Generally speaking, some people who seem to fall into a certain category (being left or right), tend to trail a very particular pattern of biases. All of which are very exploitable, and they have been exploited in spectacular fashion (even if they think they are winning an argument – thus prompting them to perpetuate that behavior). To figure out if they have been deceived, sometimes it is as simple as doing a quick check by looking at their feed, their vernacular, their answers to other tweets, the memes they post, their level of misguided arrogance, etc.
It is similar but more complex when we validate and assess how some people (to include those I mentioned) have easily been manipulated by adversarial nations Information Operation campaigns, and other methods of exploiting their biases. These are synonyms for propaganda.
And if you think only Trump supporters fall for this, think again. Even those who are against Trump can be vulnerable to unwittingly support those who want to see Trump back in office. And yes, it will seem counterintuitive to them as well. I mentioned earlier in the article that this level of propaganda is at a high varsity level. Most people sadly will read tweets, or read important talking points at a very elementary level. Then it is very easy to hide gargantuan amounts of misinformation on a semi-superficial level of veracity. Again, it is designed to look legitimate. Especially to target those who superficially think they have it all figured it out. There is plenty of room to add visceral responses in whatever falls through the cracks.
But for us who have been afforded a different vantage point, and have dedicated our lives to understanding these intricacies – the falsehoods stand up like a sore thumb. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. It does not make us “better than anybody” – what it does, however, gives us a level of awareness that is otherwise hidden in plain sight. Again, that is why I wrote an entire book about authoritarian propaganda [AUTHORITARIANISM & PROPAGANDA The Puppet Master Tools}. And, it is also the reason why I keep writing these long-form articles. Riding just ahead is extremely important, and many people are oblivious to that fact.
The political discourse is full of misinformation, and when something important comes to light, it quickly loses the spotlight to another event – suddenly this previously important event becomes forgotten, and the facts for the argument become misconstrued. In other words, it is easy to help a person you don’t like win, just by misconstruing the facts -even if in your mind you think you’re attacking this person, or “just letting the system” run its course – without really understanding if the system perhaps has been compromised.
I keep saying it, and will keep repeating it. It is designed to be that way. It can be frustrating at times when I talk to some people in Twitter, or other social media outlets and they are clearly confused about something, but in their minds, they think they are spot on, or that they had a sick burn on me or whomever they are debating.
Let me make this entirely clear. First, I have a lot better things to do that debate somebody who clearly has not made their homework; and to build on that statement – they are just not ready to make the argument because their understanding has plot holes large enough to fly jumbo jets through it. But in their mind, they might think they have it all figured it out. Again, propaganda is designed to be that way. There is always a lot more than what meets the eye, and a semantic battle is often non-compelling to the actual merits of a situation.
The Muller report found Trump guilty, but won’t not say guilty. It found what it needed to find, which was conspiracy from a foreign country to interfere with our elections, and obstruction to investigate said obstruction. That begs the question. Why did Russia (in this case) wanted Trump to win over Clinton?
Think about it for a moment, and this will [hopefully] give you the “ah ha” realization about why the Muller report is so important. Why did Russia favored Trump over Clinton to the point they would interfere with our election process?
The answer is obvious, but it is complex. The obvious part is because Clinton would have been inconvenient to Russia. That’s the obvious part (yes, I said it twice). The complex part is the thousands of reasons for why this was the case. And no, it is not just because Clinton was better prepared (like her or dislike her) than Trump for president between both candidates. Learning the intricacies of government is not something that you can do in a short amount of time. To put it in context, even our turnover whenever we have one military member taking the EXACT job we are performing, despite the fact they arrive highly trained for whenever they come from one unit to the other is a very thoroughly complex process.
The less obvious part is Trump’s character, and the character of people in his orbit – and how this can erode the trust of our institutions and the divisiveness that was going to create in the USA for years to come. In that sense, it was a huge win for them (America’s adversaries). Not only did democrats and republicans further polarized, it also destroyed in the internal political parties inside their own ranks – and further radicalized people (from either side) who think they are the only ones holding the truth – so long it is dissenting with the other side.
By enabling Trump to essentially get away with a bunch of problematic issues as they were found in the Muller Report (and his many controversies), makes it extremely convenient for America’s adversaries to push all kinds of other divisive rhetoric – and find a fertile ground to keep dividing us. And yes, they are doing that even as we speak. You’ll be surprised how many “patriots” and other unwitting acolytes repost a lot of propaganda points that are against their own interests – and most definitely against the interests of the United States of America.
Fast forward to 2024, and some people still think that the Muller Report found Trump innocent. It didn’t, many people in his orbit went to prison because of it. Trump would have joined them in a pumpkin suit IF he was NOT a Sitting President. That is why, of course, it is worth mentioning why Trump will continue seeking the Presidency. Because if he is not a sitting president, he is liable to prosecution.
Just pay attention to some of his rhetoric [especially the days circa when this article was written] asking for unabashed immunity for potential crimes. Such as when his lawyer was asked if hypothetically Trump should be prosecuted if he directed Seal Team #6 to assassinate a political opponent – and he asserted that he would be ok, unless both he gets impeached and convicted by Congress… But keep in mind that even if that ever happens, then the political opponent is already dead in this case.
This is what the Muller Report found, that Trump has proclivity to do some certainly illegal actions – and use the limitations in the legal system to get away with it. And the startling thing is that the partisanship in the system has enabled him to get away with all of this. The Muller Report is only the dress rehearsal for a lot more than followed. And it is worth reminding that the entire US Government was Republican led at that time, so there was no way they would hold Trump accountable or impeach him, because for the GOP, that would be a win to the Democrats – when in reality it would be a win for America, because it would hold every person equal under the law, regardless of party loyalty. That course of action was convenient to adversarial nations too.
How can we solve this situation? It starts with each and every one of us. I cannot change your mind, I can only give you the facts, and spark that curiosity needed to continue researching the exceedingly deep levels of context affecting this situation. I’m doing my part by writing from an objective perspective. If it was a left-wing candidate doing the same stuff I would be writing about, and condemning them too. Each person owns their own life, but their actions can positively or adversely affect collective lives if they cling to propagandistic blind spots that cloud their judgement. HLC
HLC Today in America 22DEC – www.halflifecrisis.com – Today in America
America’s polarization is accelerating, the early drumming of a potential civil war is being played – and I don’t like it. This is what we can do about it!
Politics are still irrelevant – yes really…
It has been a while since the last time I got a chance to write a “Today in America” article – my favorite series on this blog-site. But that has not stopped my predictions from becoming true. What I find most disturbing of all right now is that the early drumming marching set-up for a potential Civil War – these indicators are ongoing. Is that parabolic? I wish it was, but the reality is a lot more complex and dynamic.
Politics are not as relevant as some people might think, because this visceral response is not about actual policy or doctrine. Those attributes are incidental at best. They only serve as a way to pick a “team” to “root for” or to “feel” part of. Never mind that the actual platform policies have been already conflicting with their own narratives for years. It is important to highlight that not everybody feeling compelled to “fight” this civil war is actually a “bad person” – many are just confused. Especially some who are aggressors who think they are in fact defenders.
And in this confusion, they can feel vindication for their nefarious actions – THAT is why I find this situation most disturbing in these early states of the potentially-looming horrific divide. I’ve written before – several times, that for example, it is futile to label so called “MAGA” Republicans in any derogatory epithet and expect that is enough to reach a solution. Communication breakdown is a key component of division. It is intended to be that way. In simpler words it’s a trap. I interact with people who have become victims of propaganda pretty much every day.
Many of them are honest-to-goodness good people, or at the very least their heart is in the right place. However, their decisions are factored with faulty data. Then the correct answer to them becomes counterintuitive, and arguing with them tends to becomes frustrating or even futile. Especially if they realized they are wrong. Some of them then just really want to piss you off. For others it actually becomes a traumatic event. Facts, and rationally be damned at that point.
But it is this lack of rationality that is so enticing to those demagogs who want to push a divisive narrative into an action. Whatever this action might be, so long it is self-serving. If does not matter if you are for or against it. It only matters if the conversation breaks down to the point that we stop listening to each other, and forgo any actual substance in the argument’s merit. Especially if we happen to agree on key points. Again, this is by design, and I’ve been talking about it for years, and I am quite frankly starting to get desperate, because we’re quickly approaching the point of no return.
What IS happening to America?
The latest incendiary issue to affect us all spans from the verdict ruled by the Supreme Court in the State of Colorado. On December, 19 2023 – the Colorado Supreme Court voted to remove Donald J. Trump from the primary ballot. Sure, there are a bunch of other things going on, but this is a catalyst for a lot more than what meets the eye.
The grounds for the removal were put in effect because of a provision on the 14th Amendment of the United Sates Constitution that prohibits a person involved in an insurrection to run for office. This a provision that dates back to the times after the Civil War. In essence politicians who were pro-Confederacy were (and former Confederate themselves) sent to Congress by those same states who wanted to separate themselves from America.
Unsurprisingly, they were not very cordial to anybody who was not pro-Confederacy – yes even after the American Civil War. Fast forward to December 2023, love or hate Trump is not the issue here. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY would have been able to run for office with his legal rap in a realistic Presidential-race. In fact, with all his 90+ criminal charges and other civil charges he would most likely not been able to apply for even a low-level government job anywhere. Not as a civilian, not as a military… he would have not been accepted. I know that for a fact, because I am quite familiar with the process, having been working with the government for over 20 years.
And of course, it was recently broadcasted that more criminal charges might be added in connection with election interference. This time in the State of Michigan. So even if this pattern of misbehavior was a coincidence, at some point we have to face the reality that the probably for coincidences have long been exhausted. It behooves to see the facts very pragmatically – especially for MAGA supporters. Because if he is actually guilty, they are defending the indefensible. And it also becomes their legacy. Not unlike knowing that you’ve gotten swindled by somebody and giving them your sustained undeterred devotion.
To put this in context, every U.S. Government worker – being civilian or military must have at a minimum impeccable trustworthiness, loyalty, and character. If any of those are impacted negatively in any way, then the person would not be selected for that job, and other candidates who do meet that minimal threshold would be considered for that (or any position) available. Hence it is only logical that for the most exulted office in the land, this minimum threshold should not be an exception. In fact, a lot more is needed of the incumbent or aspirant for that job. Sure, that Trump is innocent until proven guilty, but likewise when there are open cases (especially criminal cases) people applying for a government job do not get hired until it gets sorted out. Why should a candidate be different? Because he’s popular? There are other candidates who could represent the ticket who do not have the same list of charges.
Let’s do a quick case study example. Let’s say that a person who is seeking a job in a junior position which requires a security clearance has gotten into some legal trouble. The case is still pending. For example, let us say that the job deals with the maintenance of a particular weapons system. The person might or might not be innocent of the charges, but how do we know for sure? So, the question is: Should this person be hired regardless? Spoiler alert, the answer is NO.
And that is exactly what does happen in government – and it has for years. Even contractors have a lot of limitations based on placement and access. That being the case, what should we expect for the highest office on the land, the office with the greatest placement and access of all? The answer is obvious. And we would have to be very naïve to think that accruing 90+ criminal charges, being twice impeached, and a plethora of other civil cases (which he has not won, or is losing) it is actually a very hard list of trouble to amass for any person.
Are ALL those charges frivolous? Are they? Are the prosecutors going to risk their career risking a mistrial? Also, worth mentioning, why are most of Trump’s lawyers and co-defendants jumping ship and testifying against him? At some point, the “benefit of the doubt” becomes more dubious than simple apathy for this man. However, his base will happily listen and believe anything that comes out of his mouth, and his acolytes. However, they will disavow and even go on the offensive against those very acolytes, should they start speaking out of turn against Trump.
Some of those acolytes were themselves on the offensive of others beforehand – until it was their turn to be under the Trump train wheels. For many of us, we are not surprised to see this happening. Being Trump or anybody else, the actions are more important than who is enacting them. If Biden was doing the same things, I would be writing about him too. But I digress. However, there is no shortage of GOP members, to include presidential-hopefuls who are galvanizing in favor of Trump. I was actually surprised that many of them would actually take themselves off the ballot in Colorado to support him. And that of course might have been naïve of me to think that they had some principles on the actual merits.
The promoter for that was Presidential Hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy. He essentially dared the other candidates to do so. I let Ramaswamy know every now and the of them via twitter my opinion when he pops on my feed and his words are dangerous to national security– not that I will ever get a response. But I want to do my part, even if he does not understand why. I always ask him to have his staff contact me for him to understand the unintended consequences for his often-misguided policies. In either case I was hoping deep inside that the GOP hopefuls would take the hint that this is not a battle they want to fight. Maybe a tactical advantage -because of Trump’s base, but the pages of history will state the truth – they are right now advocating for supporting a person who has been guilty of several crimes, insurrection in particular – and punishing their own campaigns in the process.
I was specially disappointed at Chris Christie who tends to be a very vocal dissenter of Trump – nowadays. He has of course been humiliated by Trump before multiple times, and despite this Christie was also one of his most fervent supporters. I don’t know if he realizes that cameras do record what he was saying. But his flip flopping and excuses for his actions might be bought by a few people, but most people don’t trust him. Hence the polls show it on the numbers for support among the GOP themselves. The blue side would be goose eggs.
But I realize that to an extent that is irrelevant. Just now I’ve been speaking with somebody on social media who is very much convinced of narratives that have been fed to him for years – and parrots propaganda points with a lot of confidence. Even though his arguments have the water integrity of a hair net. Facts be damned. But the problem is a lot deeper than what we are seeing now, this propagandistic narrative has been building up for years, and it is accelerating. And it needs to stop. The only way to do so is by educating people who are perhaps blissfully unaware of all this chaos happening around them – to wake up!
The drumming of a Neo-American Civil War needs to be stopped.
Yes, it might seem like my articles turn into a shameless plug for my books, but I wrote them because of what is happening right now. Everybody is “talking” about the symptoms of authoritarianism and some of the rhetoric, but missing the point by a factor of galactic proportions. This goes for mainstream media, pundits, and a bunch of other – perhaps well intentioned locutors. They are falling into the trap too. My books, just like my writing pertaining to these articles, are not a vanity affair. I am very disturbed by the events in the world, and I will use my platform, however (relatively) small at this time to do my part.
J. Marcelo Baqueroalvarez Authoritarianism & Propaganda The Puppet Master Tools.
We have to understand that propaganda is designed to be subtle in execution – even if the reactions it incites are very much on the nose. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but I is not. You see, a propagandist plants some seeds, and these ideas are churning on people’s minds. They become repeated from different angles, validated by other people repeating them, and suddenly they become normalized. It does not matter if you are in the favoring or dissenting side of the [chosen] issue. That is not important as much as how willing are you to be divisive against “the others.”
If you are on the side that is divisive – but on rooting for the home team, good news! They got you – or you will become a token figure to be made an illustrious example to the larger audience. A picture-perfect speaker.
If you’re rooting for the visitors’ team, stand by. They will either discredit you or try to quiet you down any way possible. This is what I realize more and more is happening to the rest of the world who has an important message to share. It won’t be surprising for you to see that some of the people with the most short-sighted and off-the-wall ideas are getting a lot of attention – AND followers! And so are those who are distracting people from the real situation that is affecting their very lives. Meanwhile, trying to get your foot through the door to speak your voice will feel like screaming into a void. I know I’ve felt that way more often than I wish, though things are turning the tide – but perhaps not fast enough, given the urgency of the situation.
I’ve been pondering on that instance – though I am grateful that we have reached readers in 79+ countries, and there is a grass-roots audience who is receptive to the message we are conveying. But there are millions out there who will prefer to be disengaged, but who will affect all our lives, like it or not. I’ll continue doing my part to help the “algorithms” (which is the larger audience) find my content and spread my message.
I do get offers from many people who claim to be able to do so, but they haven’t read a word I’ve written. I prefer not to give them my business if they haven’t taken that crucial first step.
But in the meantime, this “junior clout” makes it very difficult to get across to others who need to hear this message. Because of the inheriting emergency for this topic. For that reason, I’ve decided not to be subtle at all, and I am going to be engaging with people who have large platforms until they get sick of me. Or finally re-engage. I am not rude, but I am going to be appearing more and more on their feeds until those who review the” engagement” finally get the epiphany I’m trying to transmit.
The truth is that I cannot keep waiting until maybe one day those with a larger platform figure out who I am and what I was trying to say. I do this project (Half Life Crisis) on my own (my daughter is my team mate, but she is only 12) while trying to retire from Active Duty Navy – so this is incumbent on me to put this together in the most effective manner. That is why I keep asking for help to spread my message. This is no different, but the reason why I say that is because I see a neo-American Civil War approaching, and by the time I finally reach some clout it might be a moot point.
Nothing that has happened in the last several years has surprised me, and so far, I’ve been spot on in every prediction. The only way to stop it is if people understand what is REALLY at stake and how to reverse these bad trends. It is disturbing to me that most people I speak to have no idea about the insurrection on January 6, 2021. Some are even in denial that for the first time in our lifetimes the former and current Presidents of the United States were not present together for the peaceful transfer of power.
Those controversial moments are wonderful news for other nations who are suppressing their people under authoritarian regimes. “If it happens in the United States, then it is very easy to let it happen in any other country around the world.” This new trend should be a very disturbing situation to anybody. It most definitely is very disturbing to me. That is why I keep writing about it.
I realize that the tenor of my article is a bit darker. I don’t wish it to be that way. But the fact is that we have to adapt to the environment, and the environment is dangerously chaotic. There have been a lot of instances where violence and dehumanizing rhetoric continues to normalize. In fact, some people even seem to welcome it. When people such as Trump call their opposition “vermin” or “poisoning the blood” of our country. Those were words used by Hitler himself.
When Trump says point blank that he would be a dictator “only on day one” – that should not be tongue in cheek. Most disturbing is the fact that his base actually cheers and applauds, yet they don’t realize that this divisive rhetoric is eerily similar to what others have communicated before some of the worst chapters in our history.
The solution is ensuring that people go out and vote understanding what they are really voting for. Understand the policies, and understand the urgency of the situation. There is a much larger world than the United States alone. And some of those authoritarians have already galvanized their power over there. It is going to happen here sooner than we know – but we still have time to work together.
If you haven’t yet, please read and share my books with everyone you know, so we can continue this important conversation. Time is running out, and anything else we try to do will become a moot point. I’m doing my part, the best I can – but I am only one man. Thank you for being part of this solution! HLC
HLC Splitting challenges – www.halflifecrisis.com – Understanding History
I make it very clear every time I get a platform to speak about this; I am concerned to see America getting divided and more eroded from the inside out.
The adversary wants a divided America.
Where can I even start? 2023 is nearing its end by being one of the most bizarre years in American History. This is supposed to be a feel-good article – but there are realities we need to address. Why? Because I love America, that is why. Yet this weirdness is not very evident to great swaths of Americans – and many other world citizens. Yet, in a curious twist this madness is designed to be that way.
Yes, it is largely meant to be that way. Let’s start with the greatest catalyst – our political challenge and its congruent widespread apathy. Not necessarily by politicians – but by a large segment of people who are not at all interested in the political realities. I don’t blame them; politics can range from boring to exasperating. Neither of those extremes make it any more palatable. And yes, it is designed to be that way. Because that way a lot of decisions enacted by politicians happen unnoticed while in plain sight. Bizarre!
If you have been a reader of mine for a while, then you know I love to throw a couple of pop quizzes here and there. Don’t worry, there is no letter grade required on these questions I pose. But the correct answer to the crazy stuff I ask is still important. And the reason is because what I ask directly affects our lives – collectively. To be honest, sometimes I wish I could just look away and let things happen without a second glance. And once in a while I do – for a little bit. For sanity’s sake.
But the problem is that by letting things happen without our situational awareness, we tend to miss important indicators. For example, although there is plenty of political theater going on in Capitol Hill right now, there is also no shortage of the correspondent aftermath that affects our very lives. These could be in the form of taxes, changes to entitlement programs, legislation that messes up with our way of life, etc. Some laws pass without an audience understanding how different their lives are about to become.
Further, some of the politicians have staff who seem very incompetent. And I mean this is glaringly evident by the number of gaffes that occur on a regular basis when elected officials are questioning people during many hearings. It would be tragically amusing if it was not so disturbing. Some of these staffers should probably pay more attention to the facts before their Representative or Senator spews information that is totally divorced from reality. Unless that is the intent. I am hoping it is incompetence – but I would not hold my breath on that possibility – if this benefit of the doubt was supposed to be a bet.
Political Theater in Capitol Hill.
So, let’s do a quick pop quiz to my American Citizen readers. How many U.S. House of Representatives and US Senators can you name? From those, what are their platforms? And what do you like or dislike about each? How many can you name? 10, 15, more? If you did, that would be awesome! There are 100 U.S. Senators and there are 435 members in the U.S. House of Representatives. I bet you most people only recall some of those names who seem to be appearing in the news a lot. And quite a few of these politicians do appear (or are cited) repeatedly, although not usually for good reasons.
Yet these representatives do vote on legislation that affects our entire country. It is true that some have not introduced actual legislation to the floor, and also a significant number of these politicians seem to be divorced from reality. That does happen quite a lot – unfortunately. Let’s talk about a few to see if you are familiar with them. You’re welcome to like them or dislike them – that is not the intent for today’s article. But what I want to do is point out how likely we are to hear some clout in a very small number of politicians while many others are largely unknown to the majority of the country. Yet their voting record can be less than stellar, and hidden from view – in plain sight.
I’ll just mention the names, I won’t go into if they are either good or bad. But if you recognize the names, just think about – why do you like them, or why do you very much dislike them? In order for this exercise to make sense, your opinion over them cannot simply be because of what your favorite news outlet or pundit tells you, but rather on the understanding of their actual platform and voting record. That official participation is what really speaks for them. That voting record is what really counts regardless of what anybody says on TV or any other media outlet (to include independent outlets).
The following U.S. House Representatives are listed in no order in particular: Alexandra Ocasio Cortez (AOC), George Santos, Kevin McCarthy, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Matt Gaetz, Majorie Greene, James Comer, Steve Scalise, Jamie Raskin, Omar Ilhan, Antony D’Esposito, Tim Burchett, Jim Jordan. How do you feel about each of those mentioned?
The following U.S. Senators are listed in no order in particular: Corey Booker, Bill Cassidi, Susan Collins, Christopher Coons, Tom Cotton, John Fetterman, Lindsey
Graham, Chuck Grasley, Tim Kaine, Robert Mendez, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Charles Schumer, Tommy Tuberville, Elizabeth Warren, Rick Scott, Berny Sanders. How do you feel about each of the Senators I mentioned?
Please don’t feel bad if you cannot recognize them all. That is true for the short lists that I put in the paragraphs above or the full lists linked to this article. Unless the ones you cannot recognize are your own state senators and district house of representatives – then yeah, you probably should have known who they are. Why? Well, for example when people become Naturalized U.S. Citizens they take an oral civics test, and THIS question is asked. And yes, you’re required to answer correctly. I know I was asked this very question (among others) when I became a Naturalized U.S. Citizen. And understanding civics does make sense when becoming a citizen. I am sure you would agree to that. Should not natural born citizens be held to the same standard? We are all Americans after all.
I am sure most of my readers actually know the correct answer to this question I just asked (who is your House Representative and State Senators?). But unfortunately, that is not true for everybody else. In fact, just in the last couple of days I did my own unscientific poll asking random people about this very question – this included natural born U.S. citizens and Naturalized citizens. Which group do you think was most likely to answer these questions correctly? Why you think is that? (The answer was the Naturalized Citizens group by the way).
This priming question also helped many (not all) understand some of the intricacies about how legislation moves through Congress, and what is the relationship between the Legislative power in contrast and conjunction with the Judicial and Executive powers. Once we understand how the system works, then it is a lot easier to understand if a Senator or Representative is actually working for the good of their constituents (and by extension the country), or are they just occupying a seat in that exulted position but only fanning the flames of political theater.
Why do you think I picked up all those names and listed them in random order? Notice that I did not put their political affiliation (either Republican, Democrat, or Independent). Well, for two reasons:
First. Because chances are that you might recognize some of those names – because they do appear in the news a lot, and some were even presidential hopefuls, or held a very high ranking or influential role in Congress. Some are very good people; some others are awful – I won’t go on to say which one is what. A quick google search can give you plenty of information (good or bad) about each. Depending on what outlet you choose your information from. This is of course an invitation to spark your curiosity about each politician I listed. And of course, on hearing favoring and dissenting views on each of these political figures.
Second. Because they have been the catalyst to either moving or stalling important legislation, and the have been covered in the mainstream media quite a lot in the political discourse during important turning points in recent American history (when it comes to politics – for better or worse). Yes, those listed have different political affiliations. And many of them are not good at playing as a team. Further, some will be very incendiary in their remarks and partisanship – and quite a few of them are somehow involved in at least one major scandal.
By the way, I do plan on writing about the historical bipartisan vote to expel George Santos from Congress today. I’ve written about him before, and the inevitable happened today. Please come visit us again this weekend for that conversation.
Also, in separate articles I will delve into each of them as they are individually and collectively relevant. It won’t be in this article because otherwise this will turn into a book. There is plenty to talk about and some of that talk will be pretty intricate. Instead, my intent with this article is to spark your curiosity. True that some of these politicians are featured in the airways very often – but are their words in front of the camera actually matching their voting record and their actual service to the American people – or are they falling short on that commitment?
What I can tell you, and it is demonstrable, is that many of those I listed had repeated adversarial [to the US] nation propagandistic talking points verbatim. And this parroting of adversarial talking points might be unintentional, that does not make it any less stupid. This legitimization of adversarial talking points both bolsters adversarial nation’s influence and alienates the U.S. from actual allied nations. Does that sound hyperbolic? It should not… let me explain you why.
When adversarial nations show that the “Shining City on the Hill” is not only imperfect, but it is actually being portrayed as unhinged – this gives the adversarial nations ammunition to validate [even if falsely] that THEIR regime governing system is the way to go, as though the U.S. was too flawed to be a viable model in the world stage. Every time our elected representatives throw feces at each other, adversarial regimes rejoice. We are making it a lot easier for them to discredit the U.S. by our own mouths.
For the rest of the world, particularly countries who are not necessarily an adversary to the U.S. – but rather they might or might not have undivided loyalty towards the great U.S. of A. – seeing the US lose ground in the world stage will make an impression to them as though there is a “more viable” option. In other words, start leaning towards other nations who are not the US or US allies! These nations who are on the fence can very well choose to go for another “world leader” – who does not seem to be in disarray. Understanding that I am not talking about world politicians moving their fondness away from the USA – I am talking about everyday citizens of the world who might start seeing the USA influence as a lesser choice.
American influence in the world stage.
Not everybody out there is very savvy on global geopolitical intricacies. And why should they? – It is a very large world out there. Mathematically the task is daunting at best. But if a country at any point in history is the #1 most influential nation, then it does not matter who is #2, #3, or #47 for that matter… The #1 nation for better or worse will set a certain status-quo (like it or not) that normalizes what is or is not acceptable in the world stage. And with this I know that a lot of people around the world does take exception with the assessment of touting the U.S. as the #1 nation in the world. Actually, that statement alone makes a lot of people cringe (mostly outside the USA).
And that is a whole topic in its own right. I know many Americans will not necessarily like to hear that there is not unmitigated positive perception about them outside our borders. And yes, some of that perception is not a fair assessment. But as I said this is a very sensitive and actually quite complex issue – therefore it deserves its own dedicated article (at the very least). What we will discuss is quite eye-opening no matter how you feel about it.
However, setting a positive standard for USA is that among other beneficial things; the fact that the federal government is not going to kill you and everything you loved if you speak against the government – that is not something every nation in the planet enjoys unequivocally. Also, the peaceful transfer of power. That latter did not happen in 2020 – For the first time in U.S. history we did not transfer power peacefully. That was wonderful news to the adversarial nations – the world takes notice of that. I bet you there are plenty of Americans who are unaware of the nefarious January 6, 2021 insurrection in Capitol Hill. Or at least some people don’t quite understand the significance of that day. I know that for a fact, because I like to ask these kinds of things. And some of the answers can be quite frustrating.
Also, gaining the title of who is the #1 nation in the world is actually a lot more subjective than most people can imagine. And that perception is quite exploitable by propagandists. So, let’s put some #1 place when it comes to the U.S. in order to spell-out what does it mean. Some are good, some are not so good (as in not good at all).
Some of the USA #1 categories – Largest Economy in terms of gross domestic product
– Largest Military force by far
– Most mass shootings by far (tragically)
– Most diverse country in terms of ethnicity, culture, art, etc. Because the U.S. Population (to include American Citizens and Permanent Residents) do span the entire planet.
– Largest Oil, Natural Gas & Coal reserves.
– Largest Beef production
And I can go on… but I must also mention we are pretty far behind on other areas such as: Access to medical care (not the same as how good the doctors are in USA; it does not do a sick person much good if the doctor is excellent but prohibitively unaffordable), pragmatic equity, our wealth gap is gigantic. While some people can barely make a living, 1% of the country has more wealth than the rest of the 99% combined. And no, I am not asking for wealth redistribution in this article – I am just stating a fact. The amount the private wealth of a small percentage of the U.S. population is mind-bending. Moving on, our education system is not necessarily the best – it depends largely on several factors. Also, the higher the education level, the more exponentially expensive it gets.
Also, our manufacturing is very far behind on the world stage and incredibly expensive. If you have a “Made in America” product – you are going to have to pay pretty-penny for it 9 times out of 10. And of course, that creates a vicious circle of trying to get products from other places – because they are a lot more affordable. But in the end, it destroys the sustainability of a viable long-term economic model for the USA. It makes it harder to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing. There are many American companies who found it cheaper to produce stuff overseas and ship it to the USA for sale.
And of course, a lot of the distribution channels will need to make some compromises on the quality of the products given to consumers. Let me give you an example, a lot of the produce (fruits and vegetables) we consume are not all that tasty. Why? Because it needs to be strong enough to survive the gigantic distances it needs to cover in order to be available nationwide – ensuring it won’t turn into mush will also kill a lot of the flavor. A lot of our food does have a lot of “help” to not go bad in transit (preservatives and particularly bio-engineered to sustain that arduous process). In smaller countries – for example Italy, a regular tomato will have a much different taste (as in amazing) than a regular tomato in USA. But the same delicious tomato would not survive the trip from origin to your plate.
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Quick author sidebar: Shoutout to Italy – another country I love so much. I know that for a fact that Italy is a country like no other, I spent four glorious years living in Italy – and I left kicking and screaming among when it was my time to leave. Among other things because the food in Italy is beyond wonderful. If you haven’t gotten a chance to visit Italy, you’re missing out. Save up some money and bring a big wallet because the experiences you’ll enjoy are unforgettable. I’ve been from the southern-most point in Sicily to the northern regions in the country, the coasts, and everywhere in between – every place is unique and indescribable. I will be writing a lot about Italy in future articles. Meanwhile you can see some awesome shots in my Instagram from my last visits to Italy.
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US Capitol view from the National Mall in Washington. Photo by J. Marcelo Baqueroalvarez – Half Life Crisis
The good in USA.
But back to the USA. USA is my home, I am an American Citizen, I dress in the cloth of this nation and have been serving on active duty in the United States Navy for 20 years. My love for the great USA is beyond what words can describe, and I am chatty A.F. but even then, I am at a loss for words when it comes to speaking about what the USA means to me.
And for that I will have to dedicate an entire book – seriously. My mother brought me to the USA in 1995 and this country not only opened her arms to me, but adopted me as one of their own. This is my home, my Wife and Daughter are both American-born, I’ve lived here more than two thirds of my entire life. I’ve visited the world, but my adopted country is my home.
I’ve been to 47 out of 50 states in the USA, and several U.S. Territories around the world. And the common denominator of what makes the USA wonderful is their people. Sadly, some people (fortunately very few in the great scheme of things) are advocating for dividing our population in an “us against them” manner. That is why I am so adamant about trying to write content that will help us come together.
Unfortunately, chaos and bad news and sensationalism is what drives the clicks and the attention. I am lucky that I was able to create Half Life Crisis as a means to express my mind in an unfiltered manner. At this exact point in time, I am not as worried about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Marketing, or other stuff that would be just looking after monetizing what I do. To me it is about the message. I created Half Life Crisis so I could rant… a lot… about things I feel are meaningful and that deserve having a platform. And these will be immortalized without fear of being censored by any outside special interests group ruling Half Life Crisis – because it is really only me typing and editing all this stuff you see presented in my articles.
I do intend to include and feature more stories that hopefully will be inspiring to our readers. I don’t want to type sensationalistic content just to search for clicks, although I do want my words to travel as far as possible – because my message is meant to bring us together. But in lieu of sensationalistic topics I want to continue writing content that is thought provoking. I appreciate all my readers as I look at the analytics of my site to see that they are enjoying this type of narrative and they are hanging out long enough to read these words.
To all my readers, I want to thank you again because I don’t take for granted any visit to my site. I have already been gratefully surprised at how far this little platform has been growing. True that I have not gotten the bandwidth nor the savviness to make it a mega project. Not yet anyway – but as I say on my site’s front page. I am playing this whole thing by ear and you might be as surprised as I am at how far I might be able to take this project. And my intention is to do so by staying true to my principles. Even if it takes a little bit (or a lot) longer.
There is plenty we need to address in our beloved USA. We cannot bask in old successes and think that is enough to keep this good thing going. It takes the attention to detail to the generation who will be in the driver’s seat to maintain and make it better for everybody.
For these days I am trying to focus more on positivity, because the truth is that the world is actually a scary place and it is getting scarier. But sulking in a corner sucking our thumb is not going to fix the situation, what can fix it is the people – and for that it takes individual introspection to understand what needs to be addressed. But talking too much about negativity brings people down, and defeats the will to fight, especially if the fight seems distant from the battle space.
The first step is introspection, and by this, I mean it is important to understand what is being fed to us by elected leaders. What is true, what is noise? And there is plenty of noise and conjecture taking over facts. That is dangerous, because things can and will get worse – unless – we the people decide to be part of the collective solution. And it is as simple as understanding what this noise is being propagated onto us, and to separate facts from falsehoods.
In order to achieve this goal, what it takes is bringing our natural curiosity and comparing the facts with the reality. For politicians, looking at their voting record in the links I gave you is a pretty good start. Start with your incumbent Senators and representatives. I promise you it will be time well invested, even if it is an acquired taste. But those are the people who are making decisions on our behalf and some of them don’t have any business being in those exulted positions. Good news, elections are coming near!
As always, I want to thank you for spending this time with me. I don’t take for granted the fact you chose to read my words. I would love to hear from you, we can always continue this conversation in the comment section on this page – or in any of our social media platforms. Thank you for being with me through this journey! HLC
HLC Today in America 22NOV2023 – www.halflifecrisis.com – Today in America
Visiting Washington D.C. is always a treat; even though there are a lot of people moving and shaking “stuff” around – not all of them are great people, though.
It has been a while since I’ve written one of my favorite article series, “Today in America.” A lot has happened since my last update from November 29, 2023. If you are new to this series, these are meant to be a chronological snapshot of what is going on in the country. My analysis is not partisan, I don’t lean left nor right. I will hold either side accountable. Facts do not care about political leanings anyway.
Why haven’t I written a “Today in America” in such a long time?
Well, there are several reasons why. Primarily because there is simply so much going on, and quite honestly it was very hard to keep up with all the developments. Also, because a lot of what it is going on in America does pertain directly with what my debut book “Authoritarianism & Propaganda | The Puppet Master Tools” speaks about. In other words, even though I wrote this book several months ago, the premise of what I described is happening in real time.
Misinformation is rampant. Half-truths, faux outrages, and other misdirection’s are taking place far and wide. I am actually very concerned about that, because that was yet another prediction that I had assessed could happen. So, what it is happening? The polarization of our people. There is a growing number of people who are at each other’s throats, but they actually agree on key points. But since they are in “opposing teams” – they stopped listening to the facts. And of course, stopped listening to each other for quite a while.
To bring clearer context onto this issue, let’s start by defining a “fact.” A fact is something that is irrefutable. In order to be irrefutable, it must be logical, measurable, and demonstrable. If it cannot meet this criterion, it becomes conjecture. Conjecture is muck like saying “it’s like your opinion.” Opinions and facts are not synonymous, though some opinions could be valid if based on fact. The problem is that opinions can also be based on conjecture or incomplete context. That latter point is what we are observing here for the purpose of this article.
The political division.
For the purposes of this article I will not be leaning in favor of any right or left leaning figures. I will let you make that decision on your own. However, I will be citing examples, and these examples are largely coming from the very same political party. So that way you don’t have to be angry at me, I am quoting people in their own political party. If fact a quick [google] search, using any browser of choice will give you a lot of videos (from their own mouth) stating countless examples for this.
As we are getting closer to another presidential cycle, there has been no shortage of unprecedented events. Although the incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden does not enjoy stellar ratings at this point in time, there are also several contenders for the Democrat ticket. Biden, Williamson, Uygur, and Phillips. Runing as independents we have Kennedy, West, and Stein. And for the Republican ticket there are a bunch – Trump, Haley, Ramaswamy, Hutchinson, Binkey, DeSantis, Christie, and Burgun. And a few others who already dropped from the presidential race are Suarez, Hurd, Johnson, Elder, Pence (yes, former Trump’s Vice-President), and Scott.
Every last one of these candidates are running for the highest office in the land, and arguably the most influential office in the world. Pop quiz, how many of these candidates faces would you be able to pick out on a line? Further, what is their political platform, doctrine, and policies they are running on – For EACH and EVERY one of these? Afterall, any person seeking the presidency needs to have a reason to run – a reason other than a vanity project. For a voter, not knowing the answer to this last basic question is embarrassing at best, and highly problematic at worst because the fate of possibly of millions of lives rely on whether voters electing the next leader of the free world understands this simple premise.
If you are an American citizen who is allowed to vote, and you do not know the answer to this question – and you feel bad about it. It is ok, fortunately you still have plenty of time to figure the answers out before you show up and vote. And yes, I mean understand what your favorite guy or gal’s platform, doctrine and policies are all about… AND what are their Opposition’s policies and doctrines. Yes, for voting it is important to understand what the other person is actually running on. And by knowing I don’t mean hearing it from just your favorite talking head on whatever medium you consume. Chances are that some of that key information is not making its way to you if it is politically convenient to whomever has vested interested in a political figure.
This is what we call an echo-chamber. This can be up to a point acceptable, but often it can also be very-very bad. But even if a person love being in their echo chamber, it is best to also peek out from this bubble objectively and hear what the other side has to say. That does not mean you will agree with those outside your bubble (not necessarily at least) and with what they are saying. But if you are objective, you might be surprised how much you might have in common with the actual people outside your bubble – not necessarily with the talking points spewed by either politician.
I am personally very tired of hearing this “left against right,” and “right against left.” Sure, that either side could be wrong about something or the other, and one side even more erroneous than the other… but what we are not taking in consideration is that a lot of people who are making decisions about who they will support (politically) might or might not be deciding based on facts. Demagogs have a proclivity to hide a lot of important facts and data points, and then their loyal base only gets to hear the more incendiary and visceral narratives. Of course, that fires-up the bases, and can even make that sweet cookie-baking grandma to get off her cozy home to “fight like hell.” Yes, that does happen – especially in America, somebody not too far from you is packing a firearm with a round in the chamber. Yes, even some sweet cookie-baking grandmas.
And no, gun-loving American people are not only limited to red-meat-eating Republicans, but there is also no shortage of Democrats who love their guns. So, thinking that only one side is holding all the firepower is misinformed at best, and delusional at worst. Instances of violence among our people are on the rise, and I am not just talking about mass shootings, even though as of the time I write this article there has been 617 mass shootings in the USA. Just a couple days ago another person got killed and one other got injured in Meridian, Mississippi.
But just for some context, here are some quick stats as of the moment I am typing this:
38,671 Total number of Gun Violence deaths.
From that big number above, we derive the numbers below (these do not include all gun violence)
17,023 Homicides/Murder/Unintentional deaths
21,648 Suicides
33,239 Injuries
617 Mass shootings
33 Mass Murders
Why is this important? Because what we are going to do (or not do) about gun violence is also on the ballot. It has been part of many political platforms by the way – and for a long time. Maybe not so on the nose with some politicians, but it is definitely in a politician’s agenda, donors, and potential special interests’ groups. That is why I ask if you understand every running candidate’s policy. Sadly, huge swaths of people vote solely based on party lines, and some others cast their vote on whether they “like” the person, rather than really understanding their policies. I know that for a fact. Even anecdotally whenever I’ve asked around – 9 times out of 10 it boils down to the fact they like the guy (or sometimes gal). You can try it yourself, especially with people with a dissenting political leaning. Although you might also be surprised with people in your own political party. Surprise!
During my last “Today in America” article I spoke a lot about the new Speaker of the House and his very strong biblical devotion. I went on to say that although that his faith his prerogative, his particular religious views are not consistent with the majority of Americans – including Christians. There are several thousand denominations, so that on itself gives quite some room for dissenting views on religious doctrinal practices. Why am I bringing that topic up? Because it is significant – although the majority of people do not want to impose their version of theocracy. Some others might say “good – let’s impose our theocracy;” until they realize that that version of theocracy does not jive with a lot of the doctrines they actually profess or worship. That is in the ballot too – by virtue of the religious leanings of the different candidates.
It is interesting [and disturbing] to see the level of polarization in our country based on religion and politics – and for anybody who was not aware, these two factors (because they are multipliers) tend to be very intertwined. Add to these factors the special interests’ groups with power and money, and the return of investment from some non-elected entities can very well (and very much do) affect our political system. Especially when it comes to money into politics, a regular good American would have an exponentially hard time even making it to the ballot. Yet the fact remains that most people sitting in an elected position – either at a local or state level; and of course, even at the federal level are somebody their constituents have no idea who they are.
Another quick pop quiz. Who are your city council members? Who is your district’s House Representative at the federal level? Or even who is your state senator at your state level (not the federal level – that’s a different set of two people). All these and more elected leaders affect our present and future. And if you ever wondered how that is sometimes, we get stuck with candidates for the presidential ticket that you don’t particularly fancy – well, the race started way before any of them started their presidential bid.
I know, politics can be so boring – and literally anything else could seem more appealing. And in a way it is kind of designed to be that way. It is easier to pay attention to anything else than what might seems like a very boring legislature, debates on bills, and a bunch of other things that seemed to be “the politicians problem.” Well, their abilities or lack thereof to work together affects the entire country. And unfortunately, any buzz about politics tends to be clinging on the sensationalism. Chances is that you only know some politician’s faces at the national level when somebody does something “newsworthy.” And by newsworthy, it is often linked to a scandal.
Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
We Americans are actually more similar than we think.
I can tell you the surefire way to shut down a civilized dialog among dissenting parties. Call them some demeaning epithet or insult their intelligence (especially if they are wrong), and whatever is it that they are for or against in that moment will not be a matter of “lets open some dialog,” but rather an “I must win this battle, no matter what” type scenario. It happens, and yes, people on the right or the left have been very many participants in this division. And it has been ramping up lately. With this I am not saying that they will automatically “agree” with one another, but at the very least they will truly understand what they are disagreeing about.
Take for example the incumbent President Joe Biden. There is a lot of people – even on the left who are not fully supportive of him. In fact, I’ve mentioned before President Biden is pretty much to the right of the left side of the political spectrum. Then again being left or right on its own it is not a bad thing. There have been solid governments leaning either side. The key is on the leaning and not imposing. That is how we can work together – even if we disagree. It provides balance.
However, there is a non-insignificant number of people who are denying the legitimacy of the election that placed Biden in office. This aside from being wrong, demonstrably wrong – there have been dozens of cases challenging the election and none – as in zero – were able to prove that the election was rigged. Biden simply had more votes both in the popular vote and the electoral college than Trump. Even though it is a fact that Trump got the most votes from any sitting President in history. Good for him, but Biden (love or hate the man) simply got more.
The 2020 election was very contentious. Yet there were simply more people who would rather vote for a three-ring-circus monkey than to allow Trump another term. In other words, not voting for Biden, but voting against Trump. And even among former and current Trump voters who go (and went) to his rallies, they do concede that they are not fully onboard with his antics, although they still consider Trump the best choice for their party. I am not here to demonize Trump; some would argue he can do that very well on his own. And to be honest, for some reason a lot of his base very much loves that type of personality trait. However, that very same personality trait very much turns-off a wide swath of Americans – and these also include republicans. Many of which have been very vocal against Trump. Look it up, there is plenty of public-record video about it.
For anybody who was not aware Trump has been facing a lot of legal circumstances. There are four federal criminal cases, a major civil case, and a bunch of other legal woes with his name on the other side of “vs.” Yes, it is unprecedented that a former American President have been charged with just shy of 100 criminal convictions.
Additionally, quite recently (July 2023) Trump was also guilty of sexual abuse and rape. This last case was under trial in a civil court of law in NY. You can look it up, it is in the public record. Some of Trump’s still ardent supporters will deny the validity of these and all other claims and charges. Unfortunately to Trump, there is very strong evidence against him in all of these cases. And prosecutors who are indicting Trump at that level are not going to risk setting a case forward (and risk losing their bar license) unless they have irrefutable evidence. And it is worth mentioning that many of Trumps former attorneys have also flipped on him. I’ll let you decide for yourself as why does that jumping ship from former loyal followers keep happening to Trump.
You’re welcome to read the full copies of all the criminal indictments in this very site. I posted these articles not because I particularly like or dislike Trump. I would have written a similar article if ANY former U.S. President was indicted under those circumstances. The indictment documents are long, but they are well written – so it is worth the time you invest reading them. You don’t have to agree with the prosecutor – that is why there is a trial to reach the truth. But at least you will know what it is about. Another interesting fact linked to these cases is that also most of his co-defendants have jumped ship and are testifying against him on these criminal charges.
And we are not talking about never-Trumpers, these guys worshiped the very floor he walked upon. Not anymore though. How can this happen?
Well, I’ve mentioned before in this site and in other writings I’ve set forth. This is what I call the “ex-significant other effect.” Have you ever been in love? I mean like head over heels, writing letters past midnight until sunrise, butterflies in your stomach, and losing all rationality over somebody?” Many of us have. If you are still together with that person and you share a happy life, good on you! So do I, I love my wife. But there were some exes-and they probably had a similar level of devotion. Some relationships ended in amicable terms, some perhaps not so much. Let’s see what happens with the latter.
For example, when a person for whom you would have given your life before, for some reason falls out of favor… you fall out of love. Then suddenly you realize that what a lot of people were “warning you” against this person, or some of those premonitions that made you irk – but kept hidden will haunt you. This is traumatic to any person. Especially if you have devoted your trust, loyalty, devotion and even love to this individual. In our own minds we will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify any shortcomings they have – when they are still the object for our devotion. Until at some point you cannot longer justify this – and you move on.
In politics something similar happens. Those same very ardent supporters can swing the pendulum 180 degrees and the same energy and devotion becomes the antithesis that was previously favoring that person. Especially if people felt they were manipulated or cheated upon. Have you ever been cheated upon? How did that feel? Have you at some point a person who you loved more than anything is somebody you prefer not to associate with anymore? Again, something similar happens in politics.
This might sound anecdotal, but I have met a lot of fervent former-Trump supporters. This analogy came out of their mouths unprompted. That does not always mean they swung to the left-leaning politics side. A lot of them remained fervent republicans – just no-longer-Trumpers. We have seen this effect a lot in the last several elections. That is why in 2020 Trump was not elected, but a lot of Republicans chose to keep their Senators in power on that election.
Then the Republicans themselves started distancing themselves from Trump as the 90 percentiles of his endorsed candidates did not win their political races. But of course, despite this there is no shortage of people who would wrap themselves in Trump regalia and camp-out at a rally venue hours before the main event, or even overnight prior to the event.
Seeing it from an objective manner, we would have to admit that it is quite a visceral response to go through such lengths to see somebody speak. His followers really-really like this man. Conversely, democrats do not really do that kind of thing for a candidate of their choice. Generally speaking, if they support somebody, they will cast their vote, but not really make much of an event about it. That is why support for a Democrats will seems non-existent to anybody who prefers to show support in a similar manner like MAGA Republicans do for their candidates.
But despite the overt devotion towards their candidate of choice, both Democrats and Republicans generally want what is best for their country. Sure, that in either crowd you could find some awful people from any walk of life, but I’m referring in this case that the majority of Americans are very good people. And I can tell you firsthand how amazingly caring American people are. When people are speaking of American exceptionalism, it refers to the actual candor of their people. ALL people who come from all walks of life. Yes, that includes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. And yes, American Citizens do come from every country in the world.
Which begs the question, why would be anybody else be interested in dividing our people with petty differences? Well, I am glad you asked. I wrote entire books about it. “Authoritarianisms & Propaganda | The Puppet Master Tools,” and “Woke & Proud | The Charlatans’ Inconvenience.” And aside from the obvious plug – well, I did write those books for a valid reason. And that is to bring us together as people. There are plenty of opportunists out there who want to destroy the United States from the inside out. Eroding it away from what makes it truly great – their people.
Visiting Washington D.C. with my girls.
My wife Alicia was in the other side of the country visiting her family for the last week and change. Sammy and I drove up to Washington D.C. to meet her plane and have the closest thing we have had to a family vacation. Last time we had a chance to do something similar was in New York City after a long underway. It is wonderful being together in our nation’s capital.
This is also Sammy’s first time visiting the District of Columbia. It is actually interesting that some people don’t realize that Washington D.C. is not in any actual state in the United States of America. It is actually under the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress. So, it is not a state either – although it is [however] surrounded by Virginia, and Maryland.
By the way this is a pretty expensive city (or rather a district), but it is worth visiting. This is a wonderful town full of history, awe-inspiring sites, museums (which most are actually free), and so much more. Are there also a bunch of terrible people roaming around this town? – Well, yes there are. But for the most part I’ve always had a wonderful time when I’ve stopped by to visit. We spent Saturday night to enjoy Sunday in D.C. and drive back thereafter. This won’t be the last time we’ll be here, but it was enough for Sammy’s first visit. She was very happy to be back home.
As you walk through the nation’s capital it hits you… people in this town are entrusted with the decisions that will affect not only every Americans’ future – but pretty much the rest of the world. Agree or disagree with what I am about to say – well… not everybody is fond of the great U.S.A. There are several adversaries and even some other countries not-so-aligned with the U.S.A. that would be very happy to see the country lose its influence in the world stage. How would they achieve that goal? By dividing the people. This is not an easy process, but if you’ve been paying attention in the last several years – this internal division is taking a lot of traction.
To be honest, I wanted this to be a feelgood iteration of my series “Today in America.” I will be writing in a separate article about some of the insane amount of political circus going on in Washington D.C. – and there is plenty to speak about. But for a moment I rather focus on us – we the people. The actual constituents. Especially those voters who end up electing some of the people who are happy to do everything except actually governing in support of ALL U.S. Persons.
And seriously, that is an unfortunate situation. We have politicians who have introduced ZERO legislation – but they have been happy to pursue all kinds of political attacks with ZERO viable policies attached to that political theater. And that is why I mentioned that it is up to us – the people to understand what is actually affecting our lives. It takes very little digging to uncover the gaslighting that does take place. There is no shortage of politicians who will lie in front of the entire country with a straight face.
Further there is no shortage of politicians who repeat adversarial nations talking points and propaganda VERBATIM! Now, you would hope that a politician would not be as F-ing stupid as to do that. Yet that does happen… too often in fact. Do they realize it? Sometimes I wonder. Are these politicians that dense or are they actually cognizant to the fact that this rhetoric and misguided policy goes actually against the United States.
I’ve mentioned in my books that most good people who for whatever reason make a wrong decision – are often victims of the circumstances. In other words, an adversary (and this could be also a propagandist, and authoritarian, a charlatan, or any other grifter) will give an unsuspecting victim a very redacted version of the full context. The result is that otherwise good people make wrong decisions because they factored their criterium on flawed data points.
People wanting safe communities, living wages, reasonable taxes, national security, prosperity, rights to be happy, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of speech, right to defend themselves, right to express themselves in a way they are considered people, among so many other values – those are not uniquely Republican, Democrat, or third-party policy points. Those are American values. And yes, you can argue those are human values, no matter what country they are originally from.
When things start getting awry is when there is an overreach over people’s rights and freedoms. In other words, what does make this country great – and it is already great… it is that if you dissent with the federal government, the government is not going to chase you from your house and put a couple of bullets on your head and kill you and everything you ever loved.
There are countries in the world as we speak that will severely punish a person if they dare speaking against their leadership. We – the USA are not there – yet. It is up to us to keep us at bay from that nefarious reality. No, we are not there – yet… but this division is getting a lot closer each day. That is why I keep writing this stuff. I want to do my part to avoid it. But I cannot do this alone. And even if my words do not resonate right away, at least it will be recorded with a time stamp in history that I did what I could, using whatever platform I could find to broadcast my message.
I’ve studied authoritarianism & propaganda for several decades – I’ve lived through it before coming to USA. I know what it looks like. Propaganda is here in America also – alive and well. But it does not have to remain as such. In another manuscript that I wrote which will be released next year I speak about conflict management. And I say something to the effect of this: “If you want to win an argument, don’t look at the adversary unless you’ve objectively looked at yourself first.”
If you are very patriotic and want the best for America, you owe it to yourself to truly understand the policies and doctrines of your politician of choice AND their opposition. You’re welcome to take with a grain of salt any dissenting evidence. But you must also review it objectively as though it would be affecting another person who is not the politician who currently enjoys your devotion.
For example, if you’re a Trump supporter and you are not happy about all the indictments; well, you don’t have to be happy about it, but you can know the details about them (as in plural). These documents are publicly available, you can read them yourself. As I said, I’ve even spoken about that in this very website. And if the question is “what about Biden?” Well, what about him? You can bet your bottom dollar that if he gets indicted, I’ll be writing about him too.
By the way, out of his own mouth (Biden), he said that he wants nothing to do with Trump’s legal issues. Hence, he has not publicly commented about it. If you find a clip of him doing so (commenting on Trump’s legal issues in detail) from his own mouth, please share it with the group. President Biden himself is also under investigation for some classified documents found in his property. The difference is that he was cooperating with law enforcement. Thus far I have not been able to find anything in the public record accusing Biden of any criminal offenses. And trust me, if there was a three-there, his political opposition would have been implacable in posting that evidence far and wide. If you have seen it, please feel free to share it with all of us.
And by that I don’t mean some talking head who already dislike Biden. I am talking about actual court documents such as the ones I have posted in my site about Trumps criminal cases. I am not asking you to like or dislike Trump or Biden, that decision is all yours. If the indictments had a “vs. Biden” rather than a “vs. Trump,” you would see me speaking about it in exuberant detail. In either case, Trump is still leading the Republican primary by a long shot. Although there have been court cases that are challenging him if he can even be in the ballot due to the third amendment.
My assessment, based on current events I would not be surprised if we will have another Trump vs. Biden for the U.S. Presidency in 2024. But it is worth mentioning that both candidates will have a lot of other voters in the race that will be syphoning votes away from them. Also, there are a lot of new voters this time around because they have come of age. This includes a bunch of new younger 18–22-year-olds. Whomever they decide to follow could very well decide this next election. What are the current candidates doing for this new generation? That’s probably something worth looking into – for any politician. Just saying.
I’ll close by saying that we are the UNITED States of America. And United is the operative word here. That means we the people, we decide – together. HLC
Republican US Representative, Mike Johnson, from Louisiana was elected as the 56th Speaker of the House on October 25, 2023.
I’ve been wanting to write this article for a few days already. Finally, today I got a chance to sit down and write about the significance of this event. This is another historical moment, although there is quite a disagreement if this is a happy or challenging moment in our American history. I will let you decide what is the answer to that question, but I must note that this is a far from straightforward issue. There are lots of twists and turns in this situation.
Let’s start with the fact that the mere reason why a new speaker of the House had to be elected is because the previous speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted in a coalition lead by Republicans themselves. In particular spearheaded by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). In case you were not aware, there was a sizable number of Republicans, not only in the House but across the country who had many choice words (not kind words at all) towards Rep. Gaetz for spearheading Rep. McCarthy’s ousting.
Rep. McCarthy was voted out on Tuesday, October 5, 2023, and the race for getting a new Speaker of the House was contentious to be fair (backstabbing to be borderline hyperbolic). There were a few contenders for this position. Many of which most people would not be able to pick in a height line, but the most prominently recognizable was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) – the guy that seldom wears a jacket and who speaks very fast. He tried repeatedly to get that post and ultimate failed to get elected even though Republicans hold the majority in the House of Representatives. In fact, there was a very vocal coalition against him. Then again, Rep. Jordan likely burned a few bridges during his tenure.
Rep. Jordan failed to reach the coveted speaker of the House gavel after three attempts. To add insult to injury, each voting round awarded him fewer votes than the last. Rep. Jordan has been viewed by many as a very polarizing figure in the American political discord no matter what side of the aisle you lean towards. Obviously, what many would qualify as a controversial record has not helped him out in reaching across the aisle to gain Democrats support either, especially when he keeps talking smack about The Left.
It is worth noting that when the House had an open voting, a lot of the fellow Republicans voted in support of Rep. Jordan but, on the secret vote – in his own caucus where the names are not recorded as far how each representative voted – Rep. Jordan’s support was far less than what is in the no-secret vote. Strange huh? This is important to note, because it shows potential baggage on how the voting record of each representative can affect their political stances and incumbency. Also, there were numerous reports of intimidation and downright threats to members of Congress and their families who openly voted against Jordan.
Blaming the Democrats.
It seems more like a talking point, a buzz word, or a trope for Republicans to discredit Democrats when it comes to some of the setbacks the Republicans in Congress have been facing in the past few weeks. To be honest, much like most of the country I am sick of this partisan “us against them” mentality that keeps permeating our political system. Votes seem to be going strictly down party lines regardless of the need for an actual dialog necessary to reach a win-win situation. And by that I don’t mean a “compromise;” I don’t like the word compromise because a compromise leaves stuff out of the table – somebody gets disenfranchised. I like a win-win situation. A win-win is attainable (there is precedent in Congress about that in the voting record), but it takes more than effort. That is why we elect people to positions of power to perform that demanding duty on behalf of ALL Americans.
So, I am sorry, but I will have to fly the bullshit flag when I see Republicans blame the Democrats for not voting in favor of the Republican caucus candidate. Are Republicans willing to vote in favor of the Democrat candidate caucus? No, they are not. Therefore, it is unreasonable to think that either side would be compelled to vote outside party lines. This needs to change, as I mentioned, but I don’t see an end in sight any time soon.
Republicans also have the majority in the House of Representatives at this time, however razor thin, so in either case the Democrats votes are less of those of the Republicans. Even if all Democrats voted unanimously over any issue, they are not going to win. Do I wish things would be different? Yes, of course, and I stated as much in the previous paragraph. But, once again, it is exceedingly naïve to ascertain that there is going to be a truly bipartisan agreement based on the obvious gridlocks that we’ve observed in the last several years.
Case in point, Rep. McCarthy and other Republicans blamed the Democrats for voting in favor of removing him as speaker of the House. I don’t know if this gaslighting that Rep. McCarthy and company are spewing works on anybody, but it is very patronizing to anybody who is actually paying attention. The Democrats were starkly opposed to having Rep. McCarthy as the speaker of the House in the first place. They did not vote to elect him and, given the opportunity to vote to remove him, what the hell would Rep. McCarthy think they would do? No Duh! I mean, historically, it took Rep. McCarthy the most amounts of votes to gain the speakership in the first place (15 tries), and that was only after giving severe connections to the more extreme parts of his party who ended up removing him from his post anyway. Like, nobody saw that coming. I did, even back in January.
Yes, the Democrats do have their choice for speaker of the House and his name is Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). For this last vote, unsurprisingly, Democrats casted all of their 209 available votes for him in every ballot while Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) got all 220 votes (of course) from the Republicans. Rep. Johnson, although a very obscure figure when compared to some other US Representatives who make headlines more often, is not without controversy.
For this article, I will not delve too deep into those controversies because I don’t want my words to be perceived as leaning towards favoritism or partisanship for, or against any personality. However, some of these facts will not be easy to read for some people who might have a political bias at this particular time in our history. If the person was a Democrat and had the same baggage, I would be writing the same things that I am writing now. To anybody with a political bias I would recommend them to check this same article in the future when the emotional factor is quelled. Yes, emotional factors are deliberately part of the political discourse. The good news is that facts are impervious to emotion. The bad news is that there are a lot of people who vote based on conjecture instead of facts.
Why am I talking about emotional factors? Simple, because our country political discourse is currently largely polarized based on emotions. We need to return to some adequate level of pragmatism to realize what are the facts and underlining issues. This is not the time in our history to be willfully ignorant, or to let our emotions take the best of us, especially whenever we face statements that [we] otherwise find challenging to our perception [of what we want to believe is true, even if it is not].
What is at stake?
Actually, a lot! For starters, the extension to prevent having the US government shutdown expires mid-November. We have been without a speaker of the House for over three weeks (22 days). That is also important because during that entire time a lot of other significant events have occurred- among other things, the attack on Israel by the violent extremist group, Hamas.
When Congress lacks a speaker of the House then a lot of legislation that will afford our troops the funding to conduct operations comes to a stand-still. It is worth mentioning that USA’s military role in this conflict is to prevent this situation from spilling and expanding away from the region. A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but that is a topic for another article. I have chosen not to write much about the Israel-Hamas conflict yet because of all the historical sensitivities that surround this struggle. But, for anybody who thinks that these are not correlated somehow, think again. There is a lot more than what meets the eye riding on these events. Anybody who has been paying attention to history in the last 70+ years will be able to explain to you why.
Which is a good segway to speak about why this new speaker of the House is significant during this time in our history. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has openly spoken about how his decision making and governing style derivates directly from biblical doctrine. Is this a good or a bad thing? Well, it depends if you happen to be in the same Christian Denomination as Johnson, or you are anybody else [for that matter].
By the way, he seems to subscribe to one of the many Baptists sub-denominations. Aside from many specifically contentious theological doctrines, he also subscribes to an Evangelical segment that believes in a young Earth believing that the world is ~6,000 years old. This can be attested by his open support to the Young-Earth Creationist group answers in Genesis – meanwhile, the rest of the scientists agree that the world is 4.543 billion years old. For any eagled-eye mathematicians that means many people who make a living on several independent established and demonstrable sciences had independently concluded that our planet is 4,543,000,000 years old, or 4,542,994,000 older than what young Earth Creationists assert. I’ll let you be the judge of who is correct. But I think you can imagine which number I lean towards in this issue.
Among other things, House Speaker Johnson’s political career is built on the claim that the USA should be governed as a Christian country. There is a slight [euphemism for huge] problem that not everybody in America are Christians, and a follow up problem is that a lot of Christians do not agree in great swaths of their own doctrines. Hence, we have thousands of Christian denominations, although there is an estimated nine million Baptists (combining all branches for Baptists), and there is a further estimated 210 million Christians combining all denominations (including Baptists) in the USA. Of course, there are 332 million people in the country. So, let’s do a bit of quick arithmetic to show why this fact is significant:
332,000,000 US People
– 210,000,000 US Christians
__________
112,000,000 US non-Christians.
Are these 112 million people supposed to be mandated to convert to Christianity? If you are in the group that says “YES”, let’s discuss and please answer, “Then what Christian denomination should we all convert to?” House Speaker Johnson is a Baptist, so is every other Christian alright with following this denomination as the theocracy of the land? Let’s use quick arithmetic to ensure we are capturing this reality:
210,000,000 US Christians
– 9,000,000 US Baptists
__________
201,000,000 Other-than-Baptists US Christian Denominations.
I am not trying to start a religious contention in this article, but if we are talking about a democracy, and the House representing ALL Americans, then this is an important topic to understand if religion in politics is playing a central role. I was unable to discover how many exact numbers of Christian denominations exist in the US at this time. I tried, and there is a lot of information that does not actually narrows it down, but instead it bundles a lot of larger segments of Christianity and does not give an exact number.
However, there are about 45,000 Christian denominations in the world. So, under that metric, if we consider that the US is pretty much a microcosm of the world it is bound to have a similar number of Christian followers. For this experiment, we’ll divide people equally among Christian denominations in the world. Since Christianity should be world-wide, correct? Although these 45,000 denominations do not agree with their doctrines, if they did there would not be a need for divergence.
210,000,000 US Christians ÷ 45,000 denominations = about 3,889 people.
Why am I doing this? Well, simple. Christianity, when combined with the many denominations, is indeed a huge religion. But, when you put it in separated denominations, there are a lot of minorities (as you can see in this rough average) that are religious with a common theme. They diverge very drastically in doctrine and epistemology. In other words, it is very risky to proclaim only one denomination or religion as the law of the land. But, if you’re still in favor of this please consider the following if you’re willing to convert anybody to Christianity:
For example,
What if the “Christian US” was all Jehovah Witness? Or…
What if the “Christian US” was all Latter-Day Saints (Mormon?) Or…
What if the “Christian US” was all Catholic with Augustinian doctrines? Or…
What if the “Christian US” was all Pentecostal? Or…
What if the “Christian US” was all Christian Orthodox? Or…
What if the “Christian US” was all Southern Baptist? I can go on with all the 44,994 remaining Christian denominations but I hope this makes my point.
Hopefully, this makes sense as to why there is a separation of church and state in the United States of America. It actually PROTECTS your right to worship whoever, or whatever, you want which is freedom of religion. For example, if you are a Southern Baptist, would you be cool with being mandated under Catholic Doctrine? Which includes doing all the ceremonies and rituals under that doctrine? And, of course, adjust your epistemology accordingly? How about the possibility of instead of being allowed to practice your Southern Baptist faith, you are now required to be a Jehovah Witness? They are also considered Christian. Yes, I am very sure most Christians would not be cool with anybody imposing a denomination that is contrary to their current epistemology. Well the same is pretty much true for anybody else, no matter what their current belief (or lack-there-off) they have chosen to follow.
Why do you think we don’t have a requirement to be forced into a particular religion? Because otherwise we would not live in a democracy, or a republic for that matter, but rather we would be stuck in a theocracy. For example, countries who live under Islam have a theocracy and the Koran and Sharia Law are the law of the land. If you don’t agree with it, well too bad because it is the law in those countries. By the way, in Islam there is a death penalty for apostacy (or leaving the faith). Would you be OK if that happened in the United States, too, as a mandatory theocracy?
If that gives you pause, even a little, then the same feeling goes for anybody who does not agree with your own particular denomination. That is why we have religious freedom. The separation of church and state protects every religion and prevents any one denomination from becoming the mandate of the land.
I am spending some time on this religious leaning of the speaker of the House because he is so adamant about governing under his religious interpretation. It worries me that under that metric not all Americans are being represented equally. In other words, believe what you want, dude, but don’t force it onto anybody else. Nobody is stopping him from being a hard-core Baptist. If that works for him, cool – but that does not give him authority over imposing his religious doctrines onto everybody else from the third highest office in the land. In other words, please respect all other 323,000,000 non-Baptists in the country. Want examples about the world-views he wants to impose? Sure:
He is very vocal against LGBTQ+ people. He wants it to be criminalized. He is on record stating as much, and how he disagrees with what he considers as “a choice.” Being LGBTQ+ is not a choice, much like being straight is not a choice. You are either straight or not. So, if you’re in that 7% of the US population, he has made some pretty inflammatory comments about you. My position is simple; love the person you love and spend your life with them if it is mutually consensual.
Among the same misunderstanding he believes that LGBTQ+ leads to bestiality. For example, erroneously stating LGBTQ+ would be inclined to marry their pets. That is a very slippery slope that dehumanizes people.
He has a very deep misunderstanding of evolution, and to add insult to injury he also based that on some public statements he has made regarding school shootings (look it up but it might make you mad).
How did we get here?
Yes, that begs the question, how is it that we ended up with House Speaker Mike Johnson? Well, it might be by design. There were two other candidates for speaker of the House who gained the majority nomination to run by the Republican caucus, but they voluntarily stepped down. The most recent example is Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn). He was the Majority Whip, and his voting record does show bipartisan participation. He resigned even before the vote came to the floor, and only four hours after his nomination.
Rep. Emmer, however, did not enjoy former President Trump’s good graces. Trump had called Emmer, among other choice words, a “RINO”- or Republican in Name Only- which is some sort of insult that conservatives throw at each other if they are “not conservative enough.” What is interesting to me is that it’s likely that Rep. Emmer could have gained political support from the Democrats to be elected as speaker of the House because his voting record already reflected a willingness to work across the aisle on certain key issues. As a political strategy that would have been very inconvenient to the Republican’s narrative that theDemocrats are not willing to work with the Republicans on electing a Republican Speaker of the House.
Of course, that was very true with candidates such as Rep. Jim Jordan, and it was true with Rep. Mike Johnson, but although we will never know how it would have been with Rep. Emmer- because the vote did not come to the House floor- I have a feeling that Rep. Emmer might have been able to get at least a few votes from some of the Democrats. In fact, that would have been a wise move for the Democrats because that would undermine any narrative that they are unwilling to work with the Republicans to reach agreements across the aisle. Selecting Rep. Mike Johnson was very likely to prompt the all-so-common voting we see segmented by party lines.
As I mentioned before, the voting record is designed to be a tool for good, but it can also be politically compromising, especially when it comes to lobbyists or other special interest groups. Most Americans won’t care much about the voting record a politician cast for whatever legislation reaches the floor, but those who fund campaigns do pay attention to that closely. I am not necessarily talking about grass-root donors but instead, those who have a lot more money to spend. And, no, that kind of spending money in politics is not just altruistic, but there is an expected return on investment.
Far from implying that, House Speaker Mike Johnson is coming with a nefarious agenda, and I am just stating the obvious. There is a valid reason for why House Speaker Johnson was selected to take this role. Although Johson is far less vocally-famous than more polarizing figures such as Rep. Jim Jordan, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s voting record and career have spearheaded several issues that have been very contentious in the American political discourse. Let’s list just a few for your information:
He is pro-Election Denial, in asserting that former President Trump won the election (this is a very important factor, and I’ll expand more on that shortly). In fact, he was one of the architects of this narrative that is now better known as “The Big Lie.”
He blamed the last mass shooting on “the human heart.” In case you were not aware, the last mass shooting was in Maine and is the deadliest one in 2023, and 2023 has already experienced 565 mass shootings. And, yes, that is more than previous years. It just keeps getting worse and worse. He is very much against common-sense gun regulations which by the way the majority of Americans support (which is not the same as confiscation of firearms, by the way – a lot of liberals also love their guns and some tend to own quite the collections).
We already discussed his issues against you if you happen to be a LGBTQ+. He was in favor of criminalizing what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom. Not sure why anybody should care what consenting adults do in their bedrooms no matter if they are straight or LGBTQ+ – just staying, that’s creepy.
He wants to impose his religious views onto the rest of the country, which is what he did before being elected to Congress. He was an attorney who fought in favor of some controversially-charged religious issues.
His voting record goes against climate and clean energy policies.
And I can go on, but if you do a quick Google search you will find enough material to read for hours so I will leave it at that for now. I mostly want you to have a timeframe of reference in case you want to do more research in the future. But I will return to the one that I find most contentious, and that is the election denialism. Let me explain why this is such an important issue.
Why is election denial dangerous?
First, a few facts. Former President Trump did not win the 2020 election. There have been multiple lawsuits to contend the election results and they all failed. Many other criminal charges have been levied against Trump and some of his followers that categorically demonstrate that his narrative of a stolen election were found false. In fact, a few of his attorneys who were pushing this narrative flipped on him now that they are face-to-face with serious criminal charges. But there is a more important issue, and it is that this narrative of a stolen election is convenient to countries who do not want America to remain the shiny city on the hill. What does that mean?
Well, simple. There are a lot of authoritarian countries out there who are bidding for becoming the number one nation in the world. That would mean that whatever narrative of authoritarianism they spew would become the new normal. America does have room for improvement, but we are not in a political climate whereas if you speak out of turn the government will drag you out of your house and make you “disappear.” But those disappearances, or violent repercussions, do happen in other countries where elections are actually a sham.
The election in 2020 was the most secure election thus far. Trump lost the popular vote and the electoral college in 2020. In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral college. There are simply fewer people who wanted to have Trump remain President of the United States. So, it should be a credit to Trump that under his watch the election was not rigged, yet he is somehow telling the world that he was presiding when election fraud occurred. Such a gigantic problem would actually not be good optics for his ability to govern, just saying. Yet, in the same election, a lot of Republicans did win a few races and they did not contest those results, including Mike Johnson’s ballot. Bizarre, huh?
Anyway, claiming election fraud in the US would make other countries in the world seem “acceptable” to have rigged elections. In other words, “if the US has rigged elections being the leader of the world, then it would be normalized to the rest of the world.” Now, that is a convenient narrative to all of those authoritarian countries. But, fortunately, the merits on the evidence do not hold any water. Let’s explore.
Commonly you hear the trope that President Biden did not hold big rallies like Trump as the smoking gun for why there was election fraud. So, let us dispel this very quickly. Democrats do not really go to rallies, and if they vote they will vote but that does not mean they will be wrapping themselves with their candidate’s regalia while spending copious amounts of money to support their candidate of choice. They will just show up and vote, and perhaps donate some money to their campaigns, but otherwise they do not make a big fuss over it.
For example, it’s very unlikely that you will see Democrats buying hats, shirts, hoodies, flags, merchandise, and stay in line for a rally hours before any of their people speak. Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on that, they would instead donate to a campaign up to whatever is the allowed amount. Instead of spending on merchandise, they will listen or read what they have to say in the platforms that they consume. For example, instead of going to a rally to view the candidate as they speak, they will login to a website and hear what the candidate has to say from the comfort of their own home. Also, 2020 was smack in the middle of COVID-19 and Democrats preferred to stay home and social distance than going out to rallies and, by doing so, minimize the chance of getting infected with COVID. And, yes, many of them also listen to Right-wing news, they just don’t agree with their narrative.
However, these factors have mostly been forgotten by some of the Right-wing voters. Some don’t even know what happened on January 6, 2021, and that is already startling. By the way, that is the day of the insurrection and assault on the Capitol in Washington D.C. and what caused former President Trump to be impeached for the second time. There are many criminal proceeding and charges against Trump because of that, even though it took more than two years for the indictment to come to light.
The point is that a lot of otherwise very caring and good people who are currently supporting some of the more extreme policies were simply not afforded the full story by their outlets of choice. In other words, Republicans and Democrats can and have worked together, even if they don’t agree on everything. But there is a lot more of what makes us similar than different. That is not convenient to some people who want to push a certain agenda. We have politicians who repeat adversarial talking points verbatim and their constituents parrot them as well. Some people will follow this agenda because they have been lied to while others do so because they are willfully trying to deceive their base.
I have heard the point of views of many so called MAGA Republicans, and they are indeed good decent people, very patriotic, and have a lot of love for the country. But I say this with a lot of love in my heart; they have not been afforded the full story and, yes, I have told them as much in person while giving them an opportunity to see the full context.
It is actually very startling to see how much Republicans actually agree with Democrats on some common denominator policies. In conversations with both sides I’ve noticed they were onboard with certain doctrines BEFORE they knew that those were political policies that they thought they were supposed to dissent upon. It’s fascinating! I find it very disturbing that good people are being utilized by certain politicians to spread misinformation. If you are a MAGA Republican, it will do you well to read and listen to news that are not from your usual “trusted” outlets- both, from the US and internationally. You will discover the obvious, and that is that some of the key information is not making it to your ears. Some of that misinformation is forcing your vote, but this vote is actually against your best interests.
Whether you love or hate Trump is not the issue, here, but the fact is that he has 94 criminal charges and several civil lawsuits. He is also not winning on any of them. Understand that some of those judges were appointed by Trump himself. And any person who was his supporter but had to dissent- well, Trump disavowed them exceedingly fast.
It is worth mentioning that if you file even ONE charge for a case (for example pertaining to an indictment or a lawsuit) [especially] against a high-profile figure that means that actual evidence exist in order to bring said case to court. Especially in high profile cases attorneys would prefer not to risk losing their bar license for bringing a frivolous case to trial – especially if it cannot be won on the merits. The US Government is not in the business to bring a trial they don’t think they can actually win – and if they bring a case will be armed with evidence they gathered well before goes to trial. This realization can be very traumatic for people who have a deep level of devotion towards Trump (or anybody else who enjoys their devotion for that matter).
But it will, just like breaking up with a significant other that sometime in your past gave your butterflies in your stomach. The facts in the end will dictate how that relationship will survive. Some of the people who flipped on him [Trump] felt that their relationship with him was not as positive as they originally envisioned. You might be one of them, too, in the future. Who knows? The fact is that, although very vocal, the MAGA voter just happens to be dwindling for the very reason I just mentioned, and I have met a bunch.
They loved Trump, and they tried to prove somebody else wrong before they found out the [verifiable] truth available pretty much everywhere else, except their usual go-to media outlets. Then they got mad at Trump, and now they are not MAGA Republicans anymore. Still pretty awesomely patriotic Americans, though. Some others (who did not particularly like nor dislike Trump) already realized some that otherwise freely available information before giving Trump a chance to galvanize his power over them. That is why Trump would call anybody else “fake news” – even outlets he previously endorsed if they said something critical of him at some point. It would be counterintuitive if he didn’t – obviously he does not want his fans to hear anything that could be considered disparaging.
A pretty sizable segment of the MAGA Republicans are indeed very patriotic and spirited but we also have to remember that all MAGA or non-MAGA are also required to understand that the world is a lot more complex than what is being afforded in many outlets. I am willing to bet that MAGA Republicans will not be very happy with Trump if they actually figure out that not everything relevant for their decision making and devotion has being percolated in the rallies and their outlets of choice. There is simply a lot that whomever are controlling the narrative are not telling them [MAGA supporters].
How do I know? Well, I have been looking at a lot of MAGA outlets and I can tell you that there is a lot of pertinent information that is being left out. This information could indeed change a MAGA mind. I’m not even kidding. Don’t take my word for it. The factual and official information is available to you. That includes information about the topic within Today in America. And, yes, I have met a lot of ex-MAGA people who were not super happy with Trump after they learned about the full context. Try to prove me wrong. The information exists and it only requires critical thinking and intellectual honesty. Look at the official records that are posted for public consumption. I have even posted some on this site. I only write facts so you’re welcome to prove me wrong, but that means you will have to do some research outside of your usual outlets. In the end, you’ll be happy to embark on that research adventure. Please let me know in the comments how it went. Happy research! HLC
HLC Racketeering – www.halflifecrisis.com – Today in America
The President of the United States of America must hold the highest standards of conduct. This RICO criminal case is a huge deal in our American History.
I’ve been wanting to write this article for a while now.
Yes, this is about Former U.S. President Trump 4th Indictment. This time 13 out the 41 criminal charges related to election interreference in Fulton County, Georgia. This is yet another part of what is known as “The Big Lie” where Trump asserted that he won the presidency in 2020. He did not, and this gigantic indictment goes into painstaking detail. Former President Trump has been arrested [yet again] along with many co-conspirators. Him and all others are currently out on bail with many conditions for their release before their court dates. Violations to these agreements could result in Trump incarceration until trial.
Before we move any further, please check the link below to read the indictment. It is quite long. If you decide to read this article before reading the indictment that is fine too. But reading it first will give more context to what I’m speaking of in this article.
This court document, like the others Jack Smith’s team has prepared before, is very easy to read even if you’re not an attorney, except that it is super long. But, then again, there is plenty to digest for this high-profile case. As a reminder, Former U.S. President Trump and all the co-conspirators indicted are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. At the moment of this article, they all pleaded not guilty and they are pending trial. Some of them requested speedy trial dates, and the court accepted this proposal.
Not everybody, but mainly Trump is happy about speeding up the trial date.
Where to start?
There’s so much to talk about in this case that, literally as I type this, more information is coming out to light from co-defendants and a bunch of twists and turns that add to the story. Note that I said “add” and not “change.” Instead of citing everything point by point- otherwise this article would be a book with many volumes- I will instead do my best to put some context.
It’s sort of like a chronical on what is going on in America around this time in our history and why this is important.
First, a few key dates. Trump’s fourth indictment occurred on filing and is dated August 14, 2023 He was arrested in Fulton County, Georgia on August 24, 2023. Trump’s infamous mug shot has already been used as a political football, and even more [unsurprisingly] as a fundraising tool for Trump himself.
If you have read any of my previous articles then you know that I am neither a fan nor a foe when it comes to Trump. If I was writing the facts I am writing today, and you insert any other name that was not Trump I would give them the same courtesy. I just happen to mention Trump because it is Trump who is in the main defendant in all these criminal cases brought against his conduct. Because this is such an unprecedented situation, I have no choice but to talk about this situation as a functional adult living in this era.
The reason why I started the series Today in America in my blog is because of the important historical value when Trump, as a U.S. President, was facing accountability for his actions based on the impeachment. This, of course, was also part of the timeline when it came to the insurrection on January 6, and all the many criminal charges against him. This series is an important distinction from other topics I cover because it will affect us for generations to come.
Yes, Trump love him or hate him, will affect the United States of America and the world at large for generations to come. Some might feel elated about it, some will be terrified about it. I want you to be informed to the point it sparks your curiosity and you can do more research on your own.
As with my other articles, this will help us put some context in the timeline. Trust me, it might not be tomorrow when we reach the end of this saga– but all that is documented here will help us remember the pages of history. Yes, I know that some of Today in America does not only cover Trump, but also some additional American and often Right-Wing circumstances. All of those articles are related. And yes, if this was a Left-Wing situation, I would be more than happy to document that as well. But like it or not, unfortunately Right-Wing politics are in the spotlight because of some situations that are long-term and not beneficial to our country. The saddest part is that, perhaps unintentionally, Right-Wing fans are supporting rhetoric that is actually beneficial to regimes that do not have the United Sates of America’s best interests in mind.
Don’t get mad at me for that assertion. Read the talking points that are being sent from more extreme sides of the Right-Wing aisle and compare those with adversarial nations’ talking points. Don’t take my word for it, do it. Look what are their views on gun control, on climate, on economy, on immigration, on who they prefer as a political candidate, on what is more beneficial to them. It points out the obvious, yes, that some of the good hearts from the right have been high-jacked by some adversarial nations and actors, and they are prostituting those patriotic feelings and fervor against their own best interests. That is why these judgements against Trump and his co-defendants are so important to the Geo-Political stability of our entire world.
Criminal conduct allegations are backed up with evidence.
You don’t need to like the any prosecutor such as Jack Smith in order to understand what are his duties and responsibilities in an unbiased manner. Trump sure as hell does not like him, but why? And I am not talking about the obvious, which is that he is prosecuting Trump and the co-defendants. But the question should be, why is Trump being prosecuted in the first place? The answer is easy, because there are copious amounts of evidence for criminal offenses that bear his name. Sure that it is unusual and unprecedented that a former U.S. President has been arrested and indicted several times. Trump is also the first president to be twice impeached and that has led a group of people to storm Capitol Hill. And has a rap sheet that is longer than most other people charged with criminal offenses. That is significant.
How do we know that? Well, for example, because there have been hundreds of prosecutions and convictions that stemmed from January 6, 2021 that pointed Trump as the catalyst for the insurrection. Trump might be able to express to his own social media platform “Truth Social”, as well as friendly-talking heads, a narrative that will paint a particular picture in the court of public opinion. But it is a much different situation when it comes to painting the same picture in a court of law. Trump, until now, and throughout his presidency was able to get away with a lot more than any other President has been able to get away with in U.S. History.
And that is saying a lot, because not every previous U.S. President was a super cool dude. We had some crazy dudes in office in American History.
What is happening right now is not surprising to anybody who has been paying attention with an objective point of view. And by objective, I mean that I don’t take left nor right talking points from talking heads at face value, but rather by seeing and analyzing the evidence. And it is not hard to find plenty of evidence, no matter how desperately his acolytes try to conceal it. For example, on January 6th, there are literally thousands of independent video footage feeds showing the violence that Trump regalia-bearers enacted against Congress. And yes, some of those videos were filmed by these very same Trump regalia-bearers. A lot of them got prosecuted and many ended up, or are currently serving time, in Federal prison.
So, it is not a matter of asking “IF” it happened because there is plenty of empirical evidence, to include real-time photographical and high-resolution video evidence that it very much did happen, whatever the indictments claim to have happened. The question is how are they going to be able to prove it in court, as there are many twists and turns when it comes to navigating the legal statutes. In other words, it comes to the skill of the attorneys and the technicalities that could derail an entire case.
And if you have been following this saga for a while, then you are sure to identify the many problematic double-edge situations attorneys had to face on either side. There seems to be a common denominator and that is that Trump tends to not pay their attorneys, especially if they do not win a case.
Case in point, Rudy Guiliani, who is also a co-defendant in Trump’s last case and who also was arrested in connection to many counts. He was reportedly begging Trump to help him cover his mounting legal fees. Guiliani also lost his D.C. Bar (law) license because of his involvement with Trump and for the fact that he brought more than 60 cases in connection with the election alleging voter fraud- and won zero cases. The cases were considered frivolous. And, of course, not winning even one case does not help his credibility on this case.
Guiliani claims that he is proud to have served under Trump, and that might very well be the case. I have a suspicion that Trump might have a lot more leverage on Guiliani if he decides to flip. We know that Guiliani tends to put his foot in his mouth a lot. There are plenty of examples of that on national television to attest to that claim.
So, it will be a very interesting case to see how it evolves. Of course, the situation is not as straight forward because Trump is running for reelection to the Presidency of the United States. And, because of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, many States are now challenging the premise to have Trump’s name in their respective state’s ballot. In other words, they won’t be able to certify that he is eligible to run for the presidency because of the insurrection for which he has been prosecuted.
Can Trump even run for the U.S. Presidency again?
This is what the 14th Amendment states in section 1-5, the provision in question pertains to section 3 under the 14th Amendment:
Section 1 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2 Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3 No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4 The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5 The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Many constitutional scholars are pointing to the fact that Trump’s own actions rendered him ineligible to run for office. Any office, let alone the highest office in the land. And of course for the presidency of the United States of America, you would think that you need some very high credentials to command the most influential nation in the planet, right? Well, not so much…
This is what you need:
You need to be a natural born citizen. So, for example, I personally cannot run for President of the United States because I was born in the Republic of Ecuador, even though I am an American citizen.
You need to be at least 35 years old and reside in the U.S. for at least 14 years.
You cannot be charged with treason or insurrection against the U.S. of A. Yeah, that one, that is all Trump. If he would have let the transition of power pass peacefully as it has always been passed since the U.S. became a nation, then it would have been all good. But he didn’t so here we are having this conversation.
Is this case, is it just as easy as I stated? Absolutely not, that’s why we are still dealing with this situation. For example, there are literally days, if not weeks worth of real-time footage of Trump inciting his followers to march to the Capitol and condone violence. There are videos, photographs, transcripts, phone calls, video calls, receipts, and literally thousands of eye witnesses, among a bunch more evidence. So where is the disconnect?
If it was not obvious, we have partisans on every issue. And those partisan supporters, if fervent enough, will fight any potential avenue to argue their point of view even if the argument is futile. But that is where it gets scarier. The argument does not matter at all if a person is already convinced of a lie and want to believe it regardless of any evidence. In fact, the reality of the situation will become counter-intuitive because what they are experiencing was specifically designed to mess with their perception of reality. In other words, it is not even their target audience’s fault that they are seeing something that might seem sensible to them. But that is why propaganda is such a wicked art form. It uses the good values of a person and turns it upside down in order to convince them from a false reality. And yes, it works very well as it is designed.
The more cynical these followers are in their misperception, the better. Because that will make them feel more and more endowed with what they consider “the truth.” But the fact is that if they would be afforded the ACTUAL truth from the outlets and talking heads they trust, then they would not support them. That is why the outlets they consume will present a very edited version of the facts and some half-baked explanation to something of importance, but in a way that makes no sense if held to close scrutiny- even if the end resultant message for the audience is incoherent. Hence, they will attack anybody who tries to subject these claims to a coherent level of scrutiny.
Instead, talking points and buzz words are inserted throughout the day and throughout the same networks and communication mediums their target audience consumes. And, of course, these platitudes will be parroted as though they were an analysis that happened in the mind of the unsuspecting supporter of this false narrative. Sometimes it is very subtle, but lately it has been pretty on the nose. For many people who have bought into that narrative, it is pretty much what is needed in order to make these crazy platitudes remain effective.
The problem is that when a narrative is false it is not sustainable, period. A lot of this narrative has been losing traction- if not with the actual hard-liner Trump Republicans, but with the more moderate Republicans and most definitely with the swing voters and Democrats. So, why is it important as the election comes near for the Republican party in particular? Two important reasons:
Reason #1. Because they will destroy their own party under party differences. In other words, the worst critical enemies of Republicans are Republicans, themselves. For example, throwing epithets against less-than-radical Republicans such as RINOs, which is an acronym that means “Republicans In Name Only”. In other words, the Grand Old Party, or GOP, is heavily fragmented between the so called MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans and pretty much everybody else.
Reason #2. The Republican party has been losing tons of seats in the last three elections. The candidates that are in the Republican Primary seeking the Nomination for President of the United States are largely not viable candidates in the eyes of most swing and democratic voters. And since the Republican party is fragmented inside, that alone will destroy a lot of their voting base and force them to choose the “lesser evil” which could very well come in the form of a Democrat. And no, vilifying Biden might not work either because Biden is very much to the left of the right in the political spectrum. That is just one [of many] reasons why other Democrats were attacking Biden when he was seeking the nomination as the nominee for the left, yet he won by a pretty larger margin.
The bid for Republican Vice-President.
I watched as much as I could from the first Republican Primary Debate that was hosted by Fox News on August 23, 2023. Unsurprisingly, Trump did not participate in the debate even though he is running again for President of the United States. Just think about that for a second- how, and why, would a person seeking a job interview for the highest office in the land not want to show up to said interview? That is essentially what these debates are all about. Sure, those who want to vote for Trump already made up their minds well before the debate was even planned. But that is not everybody who is voting in the next Presidential election.
However, as counter-intuitive as this might sound it was a clever move for Trump not to show up to this debate. Why? Because now he can cloak on possible deniability and even his opponents running for the nomination cannot attack him directly on live television. With Trump embroiled in so many legal cases, he would have been a target by at least some of the candidates to say something that would compromise his conditional release out of jail until trial. With that being said, although not all, there are many on that stage who seemed to be running for Vice President, and not President based on their answers and tenor towards Trump. That was evident when there was a question to stop the legal proceedings Trump is undergoing. Most of the candidates essentially condoned Trump’s actions, even if they have spoken against the actual crimes he has allegedly committed. It was clear to me that they were also trying to pander to the MAGA Republicans.
But it was even more complex than simple pandering; it was actually a bit horrifying watching this debate because a lot of the candidates did not have a clear grasp of actual Geo-Political sensitivities, and other important national security issues- such as climate change, or the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Yes, climate change is very real, and it is a national security issue that is being monitored by the U.S. Government. A lot of other countries who push propaganda asserting that climate change is not a problem is because climate change benefits them directly. And no, these are not countries that have the United States of America’s best interest at heart. In other words, we had plenty of Republican candidates for the presidential ticket nomination that are, in fact, parroting adversarial propaganda talking points!
As these topics have become politicized, the actual crux of the argument goes missing in their constituent’s radar. Why do you think we get a lot of very terrible candidates gaining traction and running for office? If you realized that it is because adversarial forces are pushing propaganda and shoring some people who don’t know their ass from their head, trying to dumb the rest of us down with rhetoric that is contrary to our best interests, then you would be correct.
The saddest part is that this rhetoric will be so well crafted that for those unsuspecting victims (which, to be honest, can be any of us whenever targeted by a propagandist) would find it counter-intuitive to fight that realization of being fed bullshit. It is designed to be that way, and it is working as designed. For the U.S. at this time in our history they are targeting a certain segment of the Republican Party, and to a lesser extent some segments of the Democratic Party. Why? Because, at this point, the Democratic party has doctrines that are inconvenient to other adversarial forces that don’t want the U.S. to be number one on the world stage anymore.
If you go to a different country today, the left side of the political spectrum is targeted by the propagandists because- in that particular country- that would be inconvenient to the adversarial nations. Go to other countries and the right will also be targeted, much like in the U.S. In other words, if you did not realize it, the adversary does not give a crap about what your political doctrines mean to you- not at all. They see who is more avid about spewing talking points and platitudes and move rhetoric into action in a way that is convenient to them. In fact, adversarial nations that do not want the U.S. to remain number one are Extreme Right and Extreme Left, respectively. It is not a matter of if you have party loyalty towards your political animal logo of choice in the U.S. (the elephant or the donkey), but rather howwilling you are to disconnect yourself from reality in order to succumb to partisan voting despite your actual best interests.
I realize that what I am saying in this article might seem very abstract to many readers. It is meant to be that way. It is in the abstract where the adversarial forces thrive. They want us to see the world in a black and white manner when in reality it is a dynamic gradient. It is easier to hide a nefarious agenda if you put in some close-ended talking points. That is exactly what is happening in our political discourse right now, and it has been brewing for years. If you have been realizing that candidates are getting weirder and weirder, that is a consequence of this situation going into overdrive. We have not seen it to this degree so much in the U.S., but this has a very robust proven track record in other nations. In other words, what we are seeing is nothing new in the world, only new to the U.S., relatively speaking.
Case in point, adversarial nations back in 2020 and in 2016 were very happy about Trump being elected President of the United States of America. Why do you think that is? In 2020, adversarial nations were touting that the “Big Lie” was amplifying misinformation that the U.S. 2020 election was stolen. Why do you think adversarial nations which do not want the U.S. to be number one in the world were so happy to see Trump back in office? If Trump was indeed a force to reckon with, they would have not wanted him in office because that would be contrary to their anti-American agenda.
I can tell you that they were not happy about Biden getting elected, and they sure as hell were against Hillary Clinton. It is easier to spark some animosity among the very vocal constituents while they are engaged with heart and soul towards whatever or whomever they feel that speaks for them. That is propaganda. It is designed to speak to you in a way that will create a visceral response even though these messages have been implanted very gradually, and in some instances over a number of years. Most importantly, via sources you implicitly trust and respect. For example, church congregations, family circles, relatives, teachers, friends, co-workers, parents, etc. They can’t all be wrong, right? Yes, they can. It is designed to be like that. Propaganda is not a small operation, it is a gigantic monster whose tentacles reach so far that you would not realize it until it is too late. That is why I say we can all be vulnerable to that if we are not careful.
I wrote an entire book about authoritarianism and propaganda. I will advertise it whenever it is ready to release. I just need time to get the publishing process completed. My goal is to release it sometime before this year [2023] ends. It would make a good Christmas or Black Friday gift (wink, wink)! I’ll put a link over here as well when the book is finally released.
But, back on the topic, the “Big Lie” is CONVENIENT to America’s adversaries! Simply put, saying that the most influential country in the world is flawed when it comes to democracy and the integrity of our elections, as well as the checks and balances, gives card blanche to other nations to point the finger against the U.S. in their own propaganda broadcasting this banner:
“The USA is not as good as they claim they are.” – adversarial nation of choice.
That gives the adversarial nation a chance to justify to other nations and their own people that whatever authoritarian system they have, that is what should be the norm for the rest of the world.
In other words, the “Big Lie” (Trump’s claim that the election he lost was stolen) has gigantic Geo-Political ramifications. The sad fact is that a lot of people in the U.S. do not give a $#!^$ about other countries, or can even point out other countries on a map, or even name a country on a blank map. Wanna bet? Here, below, I added a blank map of the world. How many countries can you identify and name? Be honest. Not with me, but with yourself.
Blank World Map
If any person has a problem doing this simple task, that is a vulnerability that allows adversarial nations to thrive. Because this lack of interest on world events or anything else outside our borders creates a perception to the rest of the world that we are not interested in their well being, let alone their security. Yet, these countries are looking up to the U.S. as the leader in the world. Then the question for the propagandist to propagate is easy:
“Why should the rest of the world care about the U.S. if the U.S. does not care about the rest of the world? – adversarial nation of choice.”
And, for countries that are on the fence about the U.S. being number one, they would still like to know if Americans know they exist.
Using the blank map of the world in this article, let’s throw a few softball questions. Some of these countries are of pivotal importance to the U.S. and, while some might be considered adversarial, some might be considered allies. Can you identify which one is which? I won’t give the answers in this article because I don’t want to be targeted by an authoritarian regime, but let’s see how well you do. The answers are intended to gain introspection. This pop quiz is what the rest of the world that is looking up to the U.S. is hoping we, as a nation, understand in order to retain their support.
Please point each listed country in the map and say (to yourself) if they are allied or adversary (and why):
Ukraine
Belarus
Russia
Argentina
Honduras
El Salvador
Yemen
China
North Korea
South Korea
Japan
Vietnam
Germany
Finland
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
Iran
Kuwait
Bahrain
Colombia
Venezuela
Australia
New Zealand
Great Britain
Mexico
Brazil
Canada
How well did you do? The answer on this pop quiz is for you only to know the score. If you had some trouble with that, then you, My Dear Reader, could be potentially vulnerable to propaganda by adversarial nations. Propagandistic efforts only get more complicated from here. The United States of America is still the most influential country in the world, but that also implies that whomever is alive today must remain in vanguard, understanding the intricacies of the world in order to remain the leader world-wide.
Sure, some might assert, “Why the hell should I care about the rest of the world. I only care about America.” And, for anybody who states “America First.”- sure, let’s test that hypothesis. Let’s start with another pop quiz that includes a question that many immigrants need to answer in order to become a U.S. citizen.
Using this blank map of the Continental U.S. please point and name the 13 original colonies.
Blank USA Map
How well did you do? If your answer was, “This is a trick question because some of the states looked a bit different during colonial times,” then, congratulations, you are onto something as far as American history goes. But, speaking of the 13 colonies, that is a question we expect immigrants to know and answer in an oral test to become American citizens.
Let’s see how well we do, first with the 13 colonies and then with some additional questions we expect our immigrants to learn in order to join the fabric of American Society. And, yes, naturalized U.S. citizens like me know the answers to these questions. I’ll put all answers in my Patreon page.
Question #1. Name all 48 contiguous states in the Continental U.S. in the blank map provided in this article. No peeking away from the article!
Question #2. Name the 49th and 50th state in the U.S. and point those in the blank world map provided in this article.
Question #3. Name all the territories around the world that belong to the United States. I’ll give you one example- Guam. Can you identify all the other 15 U.S. territories? Yes, the U.S. has 16 territories.
Question #4. Name all the territories in the Continental U.S. that were part of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
Question #5. Why do you think I am asking all these questions? I’ll answer this last one for you.
Because understanding our history matters, and understanding our situational awareness matters. That’s because the adversary is getting smarter every day and they are pushing talking points to us in order to make us fight against one another. For any person who is very vocal about all kinds of stuff they think they understand about the political discourse, then these basic questions should be very easy to answer. If these questions are not easy to answer by this person, then this same person is likely to believe some “pseudo patriotic” information that is pure bullshit. The propagandist efforts are designed to be that way. Bullshit is presented in a way that is very palatable, but it is destroying us from the inside. That is unfortunately happening at this point in our history. But we can change that grim reality.
That is why I said that these questions are not meant to be answered for me, they are meant to be answered for yourself. And please be honest with your answers- not to me, but to yourself. In the end, I know the answers to all those questions. By knowing historical context, I can also identify propaganda miles away. My intent is not to put any reader on the spot. For all I know, my readers likely found these questions very easy to answer. Yes, they are actually very easy questions.
But, adversaries would want you to believe that these softball questions are very hard, and you should feel offended for someone even asking such questions (or even put you “on the spot” for daring to ask). That faux outrage is all part of propaganda. We, as Americans, can only remain the best country in the world by uniting. That is in our name- the UNITED States of America. We don’t let the adversary divide us, even if the division is propagated by the majority of Americans.
So, how does this tie to Trump’s indictments?
If we miss the train on this legal reality at this time in our history, then we are going to lose a lot more than just a legal case in the courts. What is at stake in these proceedings account for a Geo-Political nightmare at a global scale, as I mentioned before. Trump, or anybody else for that matter, is required to be held to the same standards under the law as any other person in the United States.
Right now, there are states contesting under the 14th Amendment to take Trump’s name off the ballot. That will likely be fought in court. Then, other states will go the other way and put Trump’s name on the ballot despite the language on the 14th Amendment of The Constitution of the United States of America. In this case, it is likely going to be resolved by the Supreme Court of the United States of America (SCOTUS) and SCOTUS is also divided six to three when it comes to the number of Justices, with the majority being conservative judges.
So that begs the question, thus far, the last high-profile SCOTUS cases were decided on a 6-3 party line ratio. What will be their verdict for this case if it reaches that high? Will SCOTUS allow Trump to run despite the constitutional conundrum as stated in the 14th Amendment? We have never had a U.S. President being accused of a crime, let alone 91 criminal charges all together. This indictment, in particular, are crimes linked to the insurrection with more than 41 combined with other defendants charges, alone.
It is being reported that Trump’s legal team is trying to delay the trials as much as possible. This would allow Trump to potentially gain the Republican ticket nomination and become a Presidential Candidate against the Democratic nominee- which, as of now, seems to be the incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden. That means that if Trump is the Republican nominee, then he would be facing Biden again. But let’s not forget that Trump did not win against Biden in 2020. In fact, he lost by a pretty wide margin, despite the fact that Trump got the most votes as a sitting President. He just did not get as many as Biden did.
In 2016, Trump won via the Electoral College, but lost to Clinton in the popular vote. Clinton had about a 2.3 million votes lead over Trump. When Trump faced Biden, Trump lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College vote. In the following elections, candidates endorsed by Trump underperformed significantly during the next elections at all levels, which included losing the Senate. That means that there are plenty of people all over the country who are not onboard voting for Trump or Trump-like candidates.
Sure, he has a very vocal loyal base, however dwindling, of hard-core supporters. But remember that Trump already threw a bunch of them under the bus after the January 6 insurrection by disavowing them when, or if, they became inconvenient. In fact, Trump called his supporters Antifa, or other groups that were not right-wing at all. So, people went to prison for Trump and he let them deal with that alone. Many of them have flipped on Trump. There are no shortages of criminal prosecutions where the defendants said something along the lines that “Trump told me to do it” as part of their defense for the insurrection. Trump also has not been very kind to his co-defendants. And, I would not be surprised if at least a few of them flip on him as the legal bills start to mount.
Again, I don’t want you to be fixated on the fact that I am mentioning Trump. I am mentioning a person who committed many criminal acts as stipulated in the many documents provided on public record. In other words, the indictments. You can read them all of them on my website. I am not asking you to take my word for it. I am just affording my readers an opportunity to read the indictments on their own and understand what is at stake behind my commentary.
As you read through the indictments, just realize that a prosecutor cannot make stuff up. That would result in a mis-trial and it would defeat the entire premise for the case. If there is an indictment by the Department of Justice (DOJ), it is because there is plenty of evidence to support those allegations. These allegations point to prosecutorial statutes that affect the entire country, not only Trump and his co-defendants.
Why does it affect the entire country? Because Trump was the 45th U.S. President and he sets a precedent that the rest of the civilized world finds problematic. Even if some Americans don’t give a damn about the rest of the world, the United States of America is part of this planet- therefore part of this world and consequently we have vested interests in ensuring that the planet where the United States exists (and that includes the territories all over the world) are safe. There is a reason why the United States of America is the most influential country in the world, right now.
Who will be the next number one country in this world is up for grabs, and the closest competitors do not hold a warm spot in their hearts for the U.S. It is obvious to me that a lot of the GOP presidential candidates have missed that memo, but I know my readers are a lot more cultured than most of those candidates. I don’t know how far my words will travel, but I have a feeling that my readers are the kind of people who will make a positive difference by distinguishing reality from the propagandistic bullshit being fed far and wide inside our great nation. HLC
HLC Fighting one another – www.halflifecrisis.com – Today in America
Who wins when the collective population is artificially dummied down? Adversarial forces, that’s who. And the way it happens can go unnoticed by most people.
Many predictions I made are coming to pass.
Who would have known, right? Well, a lot of us noticed the writing on the wall for years. And yes, I am talking about the inevitable legal progression of court cases piling over the Former U.S. President Trump. And also, we get to see a lot of the expected reactions from the Republican-Majority U.S. House of Representatives, and the committee hearings that seem to be centered around of the support for former Republican President (Trump) and the discrediting of the incumbent Democratic President (Biden). In other words, does the country seems politicized? It would be naïve to say it is not politicized. Let’s see why.
Things in the new cycle are not as random as some people might think.
Granted that for the bulk of the American population thinking about the national discourse can be very taxing, overwhelming, boring, exasperating, frustrating, futile, unimportant, crucial, historic, patriotic, disheartening, and so on. Yes, I very much realize that these reactions are very diverse and all over the spectrum. That is the point. Right now in our American history there are different segments of the population who are consuming a different part of the media-wars equation. And based on that, their understanding (or even interest) about how politics play a role in their lives can range from none-at-all, to as extremely important to them.
Both extremes may be problematic. But even in the shades of gray in between these extremes there is a lot of room for misinformation and propagandistic actors who are willing and ready to fill a lot of knowledge gaps. And it is happening, it has been happening, and will continue happening if we remain unaware of our reality; and more importantly the context that brough us to this point in our history. And yes, I know that this might be overwhelming for many… to even think about catching up with all this informational backlog. And sadly, many would prefer living in the same manner they are accustomed because of that “reality.” That logical fallacy is better known as willful ignorance.
One of the reasons why I started this blog/platform (www.halflifecrisis.com) was because I have a lot to say. And although what I am writing here has been also told to an air-breathing person (or rather, to many people) – in person, this message seems to resonate more and more with the younger generation. Why is that important? Because they will inherit this planet… along with any achievements and potential negative aftermath that derives from our collective actions, these actions we are enacting upon today.
And when you stop and think about that even for a minute, you will realize the obvious. Hopefully we will all age gracefully, and as we become older and brittle, the next generation will make a lot of decisions on our behalf, much like the current generations of people in power are making collective decisions over all our lives through party lines. And that is the key concept I want to address here, party lines. If you have been paying attention to American politics in the last several years, you would have noticed that this non-partisan decisions over key policies have been more and more polarized. In very simplified terms that is an indicator that actual dialog between dissenting parties is at a stand-still, or null and void.
This is important because under this construct legislators are either all in or out with their party’s polices, even if these policies are far from optimal to their constituents and the rest of the country. And yes, many of those will have very negative lasting effects. We’ll talk more about that in a moment with actual examples. But that of course leaves an important question on the table. What are we doing rightnow about that situation? Who is we? We the everyday people, constituents, and general public? Particularly those who are able to vote – still, or will be the next generation of voters. Every year, exceedingly sizable portion of the population will reach voting age. Likewise, another sizable part of the population will not vote for several reasons. Some because they don’t want to, some because they are not authorized to do so, and of course life is a cycle, some voters would have died before the next election for one reason or the other.
And yes, this is important in Today’s America. Today – as I write this is Sunday, July 23, 2023. And there has been no shortage of news that are ranging from the bizarre to the downright dangerous as we move into the next election season. The problem is that a lot of people are not even remotely aware of these dangers, and more importantly they don’t care to know or learn about this looming peril. This willful ignorance gives tacit consent to somebody who is actually paying attention – for better or for worse – with a nefarious agenda or not – to make decisions on their behalf. And if you guessed that these attentive people’s decisions do not tend to have everybody’s best intentions in mind, then you’re correct.
Making the population dumber, and celebrating this destructive paradigm.
Even in the national discourse… scratch that… I would say, especially in the national discourse this dumbing of the population is very evident. And yes, it has been years in the making. But for some of us who have been measuring this rhetoric, we are not one bit surprised. It is disturbing, and the trend obviously did not fix itself. Not that we could have expect it would fix on its own, but rather it is more startling that the dumbing of the population continues to spread like wild fire. Yes, the rate of acceleration for this dumbing of the population is increasing, and it is up to the newer generations to be smarter and better prepared. Whomever is inheriting this world must be smarter than the older generations ever were, because their decisions will affect us all. Remember, this generation’s attentions is today’s richest currency.
A smart-generation understands that that we can make a prosper future for everybody, without disenfranchising others. It is easy to have a group succeed at the expense of another group, it takes a truly smart group to be all-encompassing while respecting each other’s individuality, and our human-rights in pursuit in becoming the persons we are meant to be.
Unfortunately, the loudest and less informed people in many world-societies seem to gain a lot of clout in today’s society. And there is plenty of them spreading like wild fire. Empirical facts have been replaced by often-misinformed opinions. Common sense somehow has turned into a superpower of sorts. And those who are providing sensible assessments in the midst of this madness seem to be marginalized, whilst the inevitable negative aftermath percolates and becomes a normalized reality for us all. Much like a cult-like behavior. It that is not disturbing to you, it should be. Why? Because it will affect you sooner than later, and without your consent to do anything about it until it is too late.
And yes, some people might thing that this assertion is too hyperbolic. But is it? I wish it was, I can tell you that much. We have had a system that has been condoning misinformation and enhancing the clout of charlatans and other half-witted parroting cynics. And yes, that might sound harsh to some, but the truth is that this is not the time in our history to be oblivious to the dangers of being the one who is ignorant to the chaos that surround us. Ignorance is not bliss, it is tacit consent for others to potentially that advantage of the misinformed, and the ill-informed people.
Paradoxically, it is not all that hard to figure out if somebody is pulling a fast one on you… if you can see the pattens and signs from a great distance – if you know what to look for. Sure the combinations to bring to the final end-state are seemingly infinite, but the truth is that there are certain steps that will have to occur in a semi-consistent basis. Of course, as with anything of actual value, it takes experience and know-how.
It is easy to fall in the trap of a “black and white” binary paradigm. It is designed to seem that “straight cut.” But that could in-fact become the catalyst to have otherwise good people exploited by a nefarious actor. And the most sinister part of it is that the victims would feel that the actual truth is counter intuitive. That is why you see a lot of people endorsing very dangerous narratives so fervently. Their decision making is based on flawed data. Hence their calculation are going to be erroneous. It is not a bug; it is a feature on this paradigm. There are millions of combinations to make this alternative reality can end up happening, but there will be certain patterns. And it takes experience to understand this process.
Which begs the question. Who is actually controlling the narrative? Well, as thought it would not be frustratingly confusing enough, it can be bunch of people or entities. They all have something in common. It is convenient for them (those controlling the narrative) to have a segment of the population misinformed as a means to gain and keep their “loyalty.” Any time you witness dissent or political circus, always ask yourself this question: Who benefits from this spectacle? Whatever this spectacle might be. Surprisingly to some, loyal constituents from a demagog are actually not benefiting from this person-in-power, this person who enjoys the constituent’s loyalty. Regardless of who elected them, elected representatives in all branches of government have to look after the wellbeing of all their constituents. Not just the Democrats or Republicans respectively under their party of choice.
Not just because a politician is elected under a particular ticket (being Democrat or Republican) means that it gives them card blanche to do whatever unsavory deed they feel like doing to those constituents from the opposite political party. Elected leaders are supposed to use their power to improve the lives of all constituents under their purview. Therefore, disenfranchising any constituent because of political dissention is by definition not taking care of all constituents under them.
Also if a politician has so much free time to appear, or even host podcasts and TV shows, and make their own TV shows, rallies, appearances, and a bunch of other things away from their district. Then it begs the question… what the hell are they doing for their actual constituents?
For example, let’s say hypothetically, if a Congress Person from Georgia is going to and supporting political rallies in California, how is that directly taking care of their own constituents in Georgia? Sure that some would argue because they are building a coalition for their political party… but then again… should not that time, effort, and money (because those trips are expensive as Fuck) be used to actually serve the people in their own districts or constituency? To put in context, one of such events could represent the yearly income for several constituents that need it the most. Food for thought.
When I first started writing this article, I wanted to give specific examples of what is going on the national discourse, but to be honest – there is too much to talk about. And because so much time has elapsed, it might be a moot point. I do intent to talk about those topics individually. Some will go for my Patreon because of the more poignant topics. Not my choice, but for example, a Congresswoman essentially showed explicit images in Capitol Hill from in a way that can best be described as politically-charged revenge porn. Look out for that article and more in Patreon.
But this goes to point out the crux of what I am writing here. We have been dummying so much our people that inevitably we will see more of these bizarre spectacles in our American History. I was just looking at the news today, and there is s much to talk, and so much touches on the topic for this article. Tomorrow will be another day, and I am sure that I will be just as intrigued about how disturbingly bizarre things keep getting. HLC
