BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES

ERIC ZUESSE–The states which will be boldfaced in this report are states that voted for Trump (shown as the red states on this map). Non-boldfaced states voted for the Democratic Party’s nominee. In order, starting with the state that has America’s highest percentage of its population who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus-19 (or “covid-19”) virus, the worst 11 states, in that rank-order, are: Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Iowa, Arkansas, and Texas. 

TOM CARTER—It is not a question of “speaking ill of the dead” but of maintaining a standpoint of independence and objectivity, and of not getting swept away by the deluge of official propaganda. These campaigns of official mourning are a ritualized spectacle of American political life. The deceased is inevitably held up as an “icon,” a “towering figure” and a “legend.” Every bourgeois politician and media personality is expected to line up to render the proper obeisance, with each individual politician “paying respects” becoming a news item in itself. The accomplishments of the decedent, sometimes real and sometimes invented, are spun out of all proportion to reality. The propaganda campaign functions as a sort of loyalty test, with anyone who is not willing to recite the official slogans flagged as a possible traitor.

ERIC ZUESSE—Ronald Reagan, who, along with Trump, was the oldest person to become U.S. President, was 70 when taking office in 1981, and he served two terms. In 1994, at the age of 83, he was diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease, which Biden, who now is near to 78, already (and far more than Trump) seems to have. Today’s America is being run by very “senior citizens.” Their life-expectancy is short, and their attention-span is also getting shorter. The V.P. pick is consequently far more important now than it ever used to be. Kamala Harris is 55 years old. Apparently, she’s now running for President — not only for Vice President — against the incumbent Trump; and her ‘boss’, Biden, isn’t discouraging her extraordinary behavior; he is instead assisting it.

BRUCE LERRO—Part of the drumbeat of the “Lesser of Two Evils” folks, is the hope that a Democrat will bring things “back to normal,” meaning Yankee social life as it was before March 2020. But thinking there is a “normal” to get back to is a pathological denial of the fact that the Yankee empire has been collapsing for 50 years. All this while both parties have ignored the long-standing ecological and infrastructural problems, including the fallout from the pandemic over the last six months of 2020.

MoA—The Hill writes (emphasis added):

Russian media and other groups are intentionally “amplifying” concerns around mail-in voting in order to undermine the 2020 U.S. elections, a report compiled by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made public Thursday found.
…
“Russian state media, proxies, and Russian-controlled social media trolls are likely to promote allegations of corruption, system failure, and foreign malign interference to sow distrust in democratic institutions and election outcomes,” the Office of Intelligence and Analysis wrote.

Do these DHS folks ever look into mirrors?