The show Stranger Things was what got me hooked on Netflix. In fact, for the longest time the Netflix opening music was something I associated with Stranger Things. If you haven’t seen the show I will give you a brief synopsis. It is set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980’s. I would describe is as a sci-fi fantasy revolving around a group of young friends who turn investigators when one of their own goes missing. They discover that he has been kidnapped by a monster(they ultimately name Vecna) that lives in another dimension called the Upside-Down. The Upside-Down is Hawkins only a more sinister Hawkins, with Vecna and his minions, whom they call Demogorgons, from their Dungeon and Dragons role playing game, inhabiting it. They ultimately meet a mysterious girl named Eleven, whom they call El, who has rather unusual powers. It soon becomes apparent that she is connected to the Upside-Down and its denizens.
I will leave it at that, since there are too many plot twists to do justice here in this small space. The final season is excellent so far. They will release the season in phases, the next one due this month.
But you may wonder why I mention Stranger Things here, as lately I have been taken up with the horrible events transpiring in the United States. It is because I realized that currently I feel like we have been overrun by monsters, who are controlled by one monster, Donald Trump(Vecna), who are dragging us all into the Upside-Down. It seems to get worse every day with the Supreme Court now rubber-stamping whatever Trump wants, regardless of whether it is really legal or even morally right. Or at least that is the way it seems to me.
I am looking forward to the rest of the final season of Stranger Things. Maybe there will be some ideas on how we can fight our own monsters. Or maybe it will just take my mind off our current horror.
Meanwhile, this song got a lot of play because of the show. I feel like we are all running up that hill.
34 comments:
"Maybe there will be some ideas on how we can fight our own
monsters."
Well, I've been wondering… Trump has been granted almost total immunity by the Supreme Trumpkins. He's untouchable here in the States. But… Does that also cover an extradition request should some of our allies believe they have credible cases against him for espionage or for acting as an unregistered Russian agent?
It'll have to wait until he leaves office of course. If they manage to put together a case at all. But I can imagine some of our current allies trying to file for his extradition once he's out of the White House.
Oh! I never thought of that. Interesting idea. But I suppose it depends on who occupies the White House after him. Look at how Putin has managed to ignore and evade an extradition.
But I imagine there are quite a few people here who would like to try him for espionage or treason, if not gross negligence.
Hmmm...a Democrat has won the mayor's race in Miami. Interesting.
And is Nancy Mace going the way of Marjorie Taylor Greene?
"I imagine there are quite a few people here who would like
to try him for espionage or treason…."
Treason's pretty much out of the question on account of the restrictive definition embedded in the Constitution. Espionage is a possibility.
As for negligence, gross or otherwise, the Supreme Trumpkins sweeping grant of sweeping immunity pretty much takes that off the table too.
However, there is the possibility of an ICC indictment for war crimes or crimes against humanity. And some of our allies might have claims against him for criminal negligence, or outright espionage against said ally, in the handling of shared intelligence. And could be some countries, like Venezuela or Columbia, maybe others, who would like to try him for the murder of their citizens on the high seas. (Not to mention the land strikes he's been threatening this week.)
As for Putin ignoring or evading extradition…. I'm not aware of any nation trying to bring extradition proceedings against Putin. That would be futile. The Russian government would never entertain such a petition.
But, I don't think a Democratic administration would entertain an extradition petition against Trump by a foreign power either, not even by a close ally. I'm not sure I'd want them to. Bad precedent to set for no real gain. (Unless, of course, the ICC had him dead to rights on serious criminal charges--then, maybe.)
I think Greene, Mace, several others, are already positioning themselves for the post-Trump bloodletting that's coming in the Trumpkan/Republican Party.
I don't usually see a Pope taking shots at an American President. It's all the more remarkable given that this President is so thin skinned and has everybody else treading so carefully. But, Pope Leo took a shot a Trump. Politico.EU
"(Unless, of course, the ICC had him dead to rights on serious
criminal charges--then, maybe.)"
Or piracy perhaps?
I'm gonna pull back on the suggestion of piracy. It appears there was an outstanding federal warrant for seizure of that particular ship.
Really? What did the ship do?
Apparently it was alleged to have been trafficking in sanctioned oil products from both Russia and Iran. Somehow the DoJ claimed jurisdiction and sought and got a seizure order.
It sounds like they have their eyes on more ships to snatch.
Meanwhile, it seems the Indiana GOP Senators voted against a plan to redistrict their state, despite Trump's urging. Maybe there are still a few Republicans that believe in democracy.
"It sounds like they have their eyes on more ships to snatch."
It may have been coincidental that the first one they snatched happened to have an outstanding warrant against it. If not coincidental, then at least a secondary consideration to the ease of making the snatch.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Trump's DoJ has failed for a second time in a row to secure a reindictment of Letitia James, the New York Attorney General who managed to convict Trump of 34 felony counts of business fraud in New York State. Trump, of course, is shame-proof, but this has gotta be an embarrassment for his DoJ.
The United States is unilaterally lifting sanctions against Belarus. It does not appear that our European allies were even given a "heads up" notice. Reuters
The feel I'm getting from the media I've been reading is that Ukraine is finally wearing down. The Russians have ground them down to exhaustion. The failure of support from the Trump administration (and from Europe, which talks a better game than they play) has discouraged them further.
It looks like Putin's coming to the same conclusion. I'm wondering if he's finally going to spurn all Trump's efforts to sell out Ukraine on the grounds that it's not a total capitulation. Could easily be that Trump will take him an offer that gives him everything he asked for six months ago only to find that Putin's price for peace has gone back up. It may be that Putin is no longer willing to offer Trump a deal, much less an oligarch's cut.
There appear to be more Republicans willing to break ranks with the House leadership, signing on to the Democratic led discharge petition to extend the ACA subsidies. Apparently they are getting a little nervous about the mid-terms.
And the Senate just passed (72-20) a Pentagon funding bill that contains a provision forcing the DoJ to hand over to Congressional investigators the unabridged and unedited film of their recent lethal strikes on those Venezuelan boats alleged to be carrying drugs to the United States. This less than a week after Hegseth had decreed that the Congress could not have the tapes. (The bill has already passed the House.)
The Trumpkan/Republican membership there is getting a little less deferential to the White House and to Johnson as well.
Sounds like Trump is going to give a speech of some sort on prime time. Time to take a nap.
"Trump is going to give a speech of some sort on prime time."
Gotta wonder if that's wise.
It wasn't wise.
It was little more than a mad rant, one of his poorer Twitter posts done in video.
Trump announced a supposed "bonus" of $1,776 per soldier last night. Turns out it's pulled from money already allotted by Congress as a one-time housing bonus, passed Congress back in July. He's just laid his claim to the pre-existing fund of soldier's money. Politico
I knew I was right to skip it. I read a book instead. Much better use of my time.
"KYIV, Dec 20 (Reuters) - The United States has offered a
potential new format for peace talks between Ukraine and
Russia with American and possibly European envoys
participating, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said
on Saturday."
Reuters
Putin's never going to buy that. There's no cut coming for Trump if he tries to make Putin negotiate with Ukraine. Trump's supposed to force the Ukrainians to surrender and bring that surrender to Putin as a fait accompli. That's the only way he's gonna get a cut. He should know that already. This is a desperation move by a con man who's watching his payoff walk away.
Word is the dedicated Trumpkins are so far not satisfied with what they've seen of the Trump administration's "release" of its secret Epstein files.
It strikes me that this Epstein situation smells a lot like Pizzagate. Only Epstein really was a pedophile supplying minors to adults for sex. But instead of Hillary Clinton running the show, Epstein was. So perhaps someone used Epstein as a template for this conspiracy theory. It cropped up during the 2016 presidential election.
I doubt very much that the release of any further data the DOJ has will result in any more criminal convictions of the guilty. The redactions will be extensive as well.
Looks like another Russian general went up in smoke in Moscow.
I expect the ability of Ukraine to hit Russian generals back home in Moscow (or wherever) has largely lost it's shock value. Although the general in question was probably surprised, briefly.
Lol!
I suppose depending on the general, and where he fits in the scheme of things, the end result can have varying consequences.
It sounds like the next thing on the chopping block here will be our navy, since whatever Donald Trump touched turns to shit.
"Touches"
We've been quietly (and with very limited success) working on a defense system for our current aircraft carriers which might match the "drone swarms" being developed by China. Been at that problem for a decade now. It's a classic military problem of fighting the last war. (The Japanese made that mistake when they produced the worlds' largest battleships in preparation for WWII only to discover that the winning move was aircraft carriers instead.) Now we've got the aircraft carriers that won the Pacific War in the 1940s, and we're looking at fighting drone swarms which make them largely obsolete, along with much of the investment we sank into them.
So, what does Trump want to do? He demands even larger 'Golden Aircraft Carriers' bearing his own name. Stupidity in glitter.
Stopped and read a few notes on the new "Trump class" battleships. Seems he's not pushing aircraft carriers as I thought, but rather mid-sized battleships in the 30,000/40,000 ton category. According to Trump these would be "the largest ever built". However, this was just Trump being Trump. The WWII American "Iowa" class battleships, like the famous "USS Missouri", ran 58,000/60,000 tons. And the big Japanese ships of WWII (the Yamato and the Musashi) ran upwards of 72,000 tons.
It occurred to me overnight that Trump's announcement of a new "Trump Class" navy ship may be nothing more than Trump latching on to an ongoing navy project and putting his name on it. A similar thing happened with Trump's $1,776 military "patriot bonus", which turned out to be nothing more than a prëexisting housing bonus commandeered by Trump to carry his own name.
Yes, I had that thought too. The Kennedy Center name change also reminds me of that. One can only hope for a day when we can wipe his name off all of these things.
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