I. The court cases and indictments continue for Trump. And per the perennial of the last few years, we see a new slew of “Debs and Larouche” historical mentions as for prisoners running for president. Rare is the Keith Judd, and even rarer is the Leonard Peltier shout-out. It is doubtful we will get to Trump, but there is mention of number five.

Trump wouldn’t even be the only candidate with a conviction to run this year: Joe Maldonado-Passage, a reality TV personality known as “Joe Exotic” who was convicted of attempted murder and animal abuse, declared his 2024 candidacy in March.

This does raise a question of what counts — the Libertarian Party process is in – house — and despite my misgivings in Libertarian Party politics and it’s current basis of being — I feel confident he will not get anywhere and will not appear on your ballot unlike the others. Judd was a primary candidate, the other three were indeed general election candidates — meaning that Peltier ought get more coverage than Judd in this “candidates ran for president from prison” metric. And if you do count “Joe Exotic”, I demand an audit — a deep perusal of that long long long list of presidential candidate filings which don’t amount to anything — because surely this will increase the list.

Until further notice, and he shows up on a state election ballot, I will not count Joe Exotic. My list stops at four.

II. Everybody — Get In Line!

A long listing of three or so organizations who have concocted multiple names. And they met for a rally — either opposed to American and NATO support of Ukraine’s defence of territory against Russian aggression or in support of Putin’s aggressive takeover of Ukrainian territory — depending on the speaker.

Time for everyone here to interview everyone else to amp up view counts to the three digits.

Reddit takes note.

This is another pro-Putin, LaRoucheite red-brown rally like the “Rage Against the War Machine” event.

Almost fell for it until I saw “Rage against the war machine” in the bottom of the image. Can’t wait to see pictures of the Russian imperial flag flying in the rally.

Curious as Jimmy Dore gets Jose Vega on his show discussing them yelling in front of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s door. He does not follow up on the events of the “Rage Against the War Machine” part two. He was speaking at part one, but not two. The relationship is asymetrical. Along with this one place you might expect to give airtime, there is not much coverage. Excepting…

America Emboldened with Greg Boulden – Humanity for Peace is building a unified coalition, above ideologies, to stop this unfolding escalation towards nuclear war. They refuse to let humanity perish at the hands of insanity.

And the Gadfly podcast. An interesting enough listen, though receded in my memory and I do not feel like pulling back into it. I tend to think they have the “Lenny Bruce wannabe” short shift again, he who — whatever else you can say was the one speaker of the long list of droners who cut through. The only other thing I can recall is thinking at the end with the suggestion they will be there with their next event — at a certain point these things have a diminishing returns that they become essentially indistinguishable with such video fare as this.

III. On that score — good to see Drew clarify a removal from the LYM– Oakland or otherwise — contingent as it is with LPAC. I am confused by the messaging on this video, which does seem more in line with LPAC’s Trump politics. An aversion to refugees coming into Portland, Maine — turning the city into a liberal Hell. I guess he can continue his cross country tour, or whatever this is — for whatever this commentary is supposed to mean it for within the Larouche Organization’s policies.

IV. Meantime… LaRouche PAC is launching a campaign to stop—that’s right, to STOP the prosecutions of Donald J. Trump before our Republic is destroyed.

AND It is evident to all who have participated in, or merely observed the mass phenomenon of the movement inspired by President Trump, that there is a profound principle involved. There seems to be a spirit of love; a spirit that exists outside and above the conscious thoughts of any of its participants.

Now looking for support amongst Ken Paxton supporters.

V. Jimmy Dore did do Jose Vega’s show —

The guy on the left apparently tried to participate in an anti-war thing sans Larouche. Was reprimanded and/or axed for it — not sure, but dramatic happenings within the org.

VI. The Varn Blog has a couple episodes interesting in and of itself, but one with a brief mention of Larouche in a listing of famous Trotskyites, the next episode gets at him via George Galloway and via “Maga Communism”.

Some of them seem to be trying to do entryism on this mega communist entryism. But again, other than the then a Center for Political Innovation, there doesn’t even seem to be real organizations attached to these groups. Yeah, I mean, yes, there’s the Ruleru shite. There’s two different Lerushite groups. There’s the Schiller Institute, which I think actually technically in Europe and gets a lot of funding from China not when I say from China, I don’t mean from the Chinese government, I mean from Chinese investors and LaRouche Pac, which is more, it does stop the steal stuff in America. So, but the history of LaRouche is actually opaque. Even the people study it, because it’s not actually quite clear that it’s ever been as influence, like both its clerics and its supporters seem to believe it was more influential than I have evidence for it to be.

VII. Professional History

Dan Rea:

you had like Lyndon Larouche. By the way, now that you mentioned Lyndon Larouche. I want you to know, ken that a series of stories that i did on Lyndon Larouche’s beginning in nineteen eighty four resulted in him being convicted in the Southern District of Virginia court in nineteen eighty six, and he went to prison for ninety true story.
He was nuts. He was flat out nuts. He was a scam artist. He ran a Ponzi scheme, and it just so happened that we found out about it. And I’m very
proud as of the fact that I that my stories on Channel four resulted him
being him and his associates being indicted here in Boston with a superseding indictment.
Now that you mentioned Lyndon Larouche is not mentioned often on here. And I’ll tell you one funny story if I can I think I’ll enjoy this real,
quickly true story. Four or five years the Larouche people hated Henry Kissinger. They accused him of conspiring with Queen Elizabeth
But to bring drugs into America. They were vile. They would stand outside his apartment and when Kissinger and his wife and Nancy Kissinger would emerge from the apartment, they would yell vile things at Kissinger
about being a child and all of that. So fast forward five or six years after Larouche has been convicted. I’m set up to interview Kissinger in
Boston and he had written a book. This is probably in the early nineteen
nineties. So he was speaking to a group I think it was at the
convention center, and we’re in a room all set up waiting for him,
and he’s running late. He shows up about an hour late, and his
press person walks in the room and says to me, I’m very sorry,
but we’re late and doctor Kissinger will not have time for the interview that we had scheduled with you. Well, of course I was pretty upset. It
was a small room, so I raised my voice and I said, so
you’re telling me that doctor Kissinger does not want to be interviewed and meet the reporter in Boston whose stories resulted in Lyndon LaRouche being convicted and sent the President. Larouche rather kissing is in the corner.
He turns around very very slowly and he says, uh, we we we will, we will have time, We will have time to do this interview. Very nice, very first
story. Thanks thanks man, I appreciate it. That is an absolute true
story. Where are we gonna go next.

VII. Two episodes of ‘Schizotopia’ worth a listen — perhaps at increased speed — I am joined by ‘LaRoucheian Operative’ Liam Murphy to discuss his political journey and his work with the LaRouche political movement. Topics include: Christo-Stalinism, Anti Communist Communism, Cosmism, Prometheanism vs. The Bible, Geophysical Humanism, Based Uganda, The Executive Intelligence Review and the Nietzsche-Flat Earther-LaRouche pipeline.

Is what it says. Puzzle to fix generational perspective — “I think Larouche was inspired by the John Birch Society” — and A confusion in the two Presidents Bush.

A tad more coherent is a maybe more diluted Larouchism — Maga Communism discussed with Fox Green.

And at the 50 minute mark or thereabouts here, this podcasters discusses nearly joining the Larouche movement at age 16 or 17 — and, transcripted:

When I was about 16 or 17 years old, I almost became a Larouche Youth. I don’t know how familiar you are with Larouche. I would assume — I’m sure they have Larouche people in Canada, right? He’s basically — you would like this guy, actually. Because he’s almost like if J Ray decided to start an actual political party and was 100% committed to it. Because, he starts off as like a Communist, but then he develops this weird theory of like how all of Western history is Plato vs Aristotle and Plato’s a fascist who wants us to live in a frozen city and there are things that change and evolve um but then he gets this idea that Fabian Socialists are creating rock and roll to make us dumb degenerates so we can’t have Communism and it starts to become rightwing. So he’s like this weird American version of Nazbol. Like, they were really into the idea that if FDR had lived he would have created this super productive social democracy that would have built infrastructure for the entire world, almost like AS Pinksphile(?) or something like that and they wanted to build a super pipeline through Alaska — just all this very wacky edge of politics. But I remember this dude who was trying to — he was becoming my handler and he was indicting me into the Larouche Youth, giving me all this literature — I’m like, 16, 17 years old — it sounds pretty cool — I like all of these weird theories and stuff and I remember this guy told me he dropped out of college to serve the Larouche cause and he told me that all he had done before he had been a Larouche Youth was smile weed in his apartment and listen to Radiohead, that was it, and his life was completely meaningless, but now that he had Larouche in his life,everything made sense. And that freaked me out a little bit, even at my young age that tingled my Spidey senses a little. But after hanging out with him a little more I realized it was a cult and I needed to leave. But one thing I remember — I finally stopped answering his phone ballache left his voice mail on my phone — that was basically like almost a jilted lover. He was saying stuff like I really thought you were different, I thought you were smart, I thought you were special. I thought we would do all these great things. And here’s the thing — there’s no way that that guy stayed in that movement. He had to have burned out of it in a couple of years. Whatever. I’ll probably see him and he’ll be the successor to the guy who died recently but — or move to Alaska in a couple years. But whatever. It seems obvious that he joined this movement because he was just unhappy with his own life and it’s crazy to me especially with internet politics stuff and just a lot of people I have spoken to over the years, almost two years I’ve been doing this podcast, these people who clearly desperately talk their way into things — it’s scary to see that because you realize how much you do that in your own life.

All I can say is I’m very pro-cult, so it sounds like you missed out on a great opportunity.

VIII. Trump? famously more delusional than Col. Kurtz meets Lyndon LaRouche …

So the Smash Mouth lead singer passed away. This is this group I had zero strong opinion on except that I got stuck in a “am I defending something I just find objectively unobjectionable?” question when I started seeing them used as a short hand for … Something cultural, I don’t know what. It was this blasting from a niche online influencer, like a big crochet online hub, who gnabbed some attention by posting that all Trump supporters and voters can go to Hell and I don’t want to hear anything from them ever and they can all be left to their Smash Mouth concerts. To which I scratched my head — why bring Smash Mouth into this? What did they ever do? Later, a back handed praise from The Huffington Post came when Smash Mouth made the lowest of low hanging fruit stage comments on mocking a “straight pride parade” with a response comment along the lines of “who woulda thought Smash Mouth would be socially conscious” — were they ever explicitly not? Am I staring at some Holden Coulfields finding “phoneys” everywhere and when diverging out of their fixed idea on musical and entertainment tastes? What is this? Is this slammed in the same manner something’s are as “angry white boy music” as instead ” happy white boy music”?

There are cultural signifiers tossed out with a fixed understanding that I need to make a reach to understand what it signifiers even as it is stated as a given. It could be a sign of me getting old and out of touch except for the problem that I used to be young and out of touch.

The other day I am caught flat footed with another pop cultural assumption of an adjective. Stephen King annoyed his wife by constant play of the song “Mambo Number Five” (The late 90s lyrical -filled reprise of an old song). Big Variety headline. The article casually refers to the song as “infamous”, leading me to ask “to whom — when — where?”. It has been years — decades — since it was ubiquitous (the one reason it could have been “infamous”) and today if you wish to hear it you have to specifically seek it out. I suppose the casual womanizing and listing of women’s name is an irksome message, and it would not be gauche to play constantly at your significant other in any monogamous relationship. But I don’t think the same adjective is being dropped in as an automatic qualifier for (name of a 50s rock song is escaping me, but it is barely coded and amounts to same thing and ends up dropped in commercials). Is this adjective drop a low level “cancel” attempt to firm up cultural consensus? What is this?

The Time (or was it Newsweek?) magazine cover which placed Obama as the “First Gay President” — because we sort of just drop the actual bonafide homosexual one of James Buchanan — may finally have some meaning to it. He “lusted in his heart“. At that age of experimentation, I guess, in that one cultural environment and setting that may encourage (or not discourage) such. Metro-sexuality gets its undertones overtoned.

I am stuck on the source … a tad. Like, it is the problem of a claim I am indifferent to and is picked up by everyone who is not as indifferent to with different meanings to different audiences — Pink News and Fox News — as fact, but is then followed by warnings of what a non existent threat of a non materializing Supreme Court appointment may mean.

Whether this was picked up on by gays during 2008 as Obama publicly took the stances against gay marriage and gays in the military, I can’t really say. I also do not know if the flip flop, transparently probable at the time — or, if this is your very important die on the hill stance you really ought back McCain / Palin and I would have said as much in 2008 — is something you can have a beef with in 2023, as apparently is had by our big country music sensation has right about now. I do give him this much — is the great issue repositioning I take on all the bozos who view all that two parties as keeping on nothing at all but a rightward march, no position swappings from betwixt the two and redefinitions of terms — why look at all these repositioned Anti-Trump Republicans seizing comfortably into the Democratic Party! At the same time, on his other issue — guns — Obama’s presidency represented the time period where that issue was shelved, so in consideration of Obama from his stated viewpoints here — that should be one against and one for him.

The line we get to a couple sentences in some letters from a college Obama gets extrapolated into derangement. Ticket Carlson speaks of crack. Newsmax hosts retell the one about the Secret Service dropping off rentboys. Edgy fiction writers they.

That sinking sensation of a “Welcome to Hell” I feel when staring at political headlines or stories never abates. No one works in good faith. I have to squint at a Huffington Post story — describing the governor of Virginia as a “so-called Moderate” nonetheless “backing anti-choice” candidates. As near as I can tell, the governor of Virginia never presented himself as anything but a conservative Republican, with his appeals to “moderate” swing-voters an appeal from the right, interpreted by political pundits as “cultural” lines of attack even though it is the fair domain of public school curriculum. “Maga!” shouted his Democratic opponent, incessantly until it has no real meaning. (Similar to the word “woke” losing any meaning.) Now I suppose, the liberals and Democrats now can try and achieve an opposition by appealing to the “moderates” and “swing voters” from the left on Abortion — which depending on how you want to define it is a “cultural” line of attack or the proper domain of medical policy.

The Virginia governor’s campaign did did fall somewhere short on the spectrum of DeSantis’s current policy in Florida, which I guess is what makes it an appeal to moderation. I guess for whatever Republican comes up next to run in “one term limit” Virginia, it is good to have Florida setting something to fall short of in making a right wing pitch on education and moderate against some unpopular liberal education policies. Or maybe it isn’t. It may just mean the Democrat can just run against DeSantis. Which may be proper as — they make the same basic appeal, after all.

Getting to the official fact check on Tim Scott at the Republican debate that the DOJ never called parents yelling at school board meetings “domestic terrorists”, as the report is full of references to the democratic glories of “spirited debate”. I think the organization dubbed such, or maybe it was a “hate group” — was something like “Moms for Liberty”? They fall outside somebody’s Overton Window, and at the very least pepper up parents to yell at school boards. I there for mark the fact checker fact check “false” eating as “false”, whether or not the full backstory justified the memos is an irrelevancy. The best moves on. Find a different market than “false”, like “true, but out of balance”.

On a betting line, I do not blame you if given a choice of Trump and The Field of you choose The Field. But each individual — nah. We enter alternate universes where each of a handful of candidate happens, but the biggest shard remains Trump’s.

The National Review almost has me convinced it will yet be DeSantis. Despite everything. Think of it as McCain 2008. Kerry 2004. Their campaigns failed into a lot my dark stretch. And then came a reckoning. Huckabee shot down Romney and Dean was all hot air.

And yes, at the moment it is the Trump show. But Iowa and New Hampshire stare at the names and change the dynamics in a hurry. Or they don’t. See how this works? It is a hinge that Trump can collapse to his corest of core support.

Mitch McConnell freezes again. He turns into another Diane Feinstein. Maybe if I bind McConnell in together the call for Feinstein to resign and retire now won’t be met with charges of sexist double-standards? For Biden, it would be good for the mental collapses to be off the stage, even if their departures will bring immediate suggestions on “and how about you?” – – not… Quite… Deserved, but almost nearly.

Headline: Donald Trump Says President Joe Biden’s ‘Toothpick’ Legs Look ‘Terrible’ at the Beach. Hey. Cool. Trump referenced the looks of a political opponent. Not a woman. A man at the line that his insults on female politicos’ appearances are misogyny.

These are the droppings that come out of the Trump appearance on Ticket Carlson on ‘x’. Which, despite reports, did not have the viewership of the Republican debate. I think?

Hard to figure out what, exactly, is going on. I have the sense that despite everything, the lack of appearance of Trump — the most likely Republican nominee — made it a more productive exercise. We have the bunch of also-runs jostling for a position in the event of a thing that may still happen — it is not a fait accompli that Trump wins — and at any rate, as we enter into multiple court trials, the ball goes into the Republican Party electorate court — these candidates are sitting there.

Squint and maybe you find a Republican Party with policy and strategy divisions jockeying of a Trump disappearing universe. A politician guy who reaches to be the next Trump but lands on the new Ted Cruz — just as Cruz attempted to run on Trump’s right and fell flat, so does DeSantis. More successful, at the moment, Ramaswamy. The only guy who is keeping alive a vice-presidential possibility in the current Trump calculus which differs markedly from 2016. I suppose Nikki Haley is the only person else who figures at all — if the Republican Party could get together a smoke-filled room to override its electorate, they may just force her through.

So. Bring on the second debate. Reconfigure the meaning. We are aged away from the quaint complaint of Daniel Boorstin on Kennedy-Nixon — the term “pseudo-event”. This does signify something, but what — we need the real events to clarify.

Within hours of a presidential primary debate that has its major non participants over-shadowing it with criminal indictments and an appearance in a non-linear tv / internet show from a man who has privately professed to hate the guy. The two closest thing to front-runners on the stage is a governor whose campaign has comically crashed and burned and is currently getting a lot of write up on that, and some rich guy who is getting a lot of write up on comments on 9/11.

Something about why were there no Feds on the planes that crashed on 9/11? That is an odd one, to be sure. I can’t say that I have heard it before. Or maybe I had but just got it blurred with the other lines of inquiry.

I don’t know that the state of 9/11 Truth is such that this can gain Ramaswamy any voting bloc, even a tiny one. Then agaon, Hillary Clinton had long been favoured by ufo enthusiasts, but I get the feeling they basically swing toward Trump off of neighbouring issue clumps.

Funny thing. The “underground” viral Southern fair sensation of the moment name checks Epstein. Conspiracy theory abounds. To be sure, we get further conspiracy theorizing — the attempt to get a paper trail on who financed and platformed the song — probably the case, as all the viral grassroots sensations left and right have “astro-turf” components in them, with the left checking the right’s and the right checking the left’s.

Funny thing too. That one guy — the bald guy who is broadly referenc -able as “that guy in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul” since I only have the broadest of broad strokes on the history and doings of the Wagner Group. He lead a shady looking insurrection shadily called off at the last minute and I do not know what really happened other than it was something beyond the official Russian government story. He is dead now. Plane crash. And what do you know? Biden hints at what everyone is thinking when he says “not surprised”.

It will take years to find out if that ages into Ramaswamy’s comments, or swerves into conspiracy analysis. Not getting any credit from the conspiracy nut corner — affixed to an anti-nato line, Russia commits no conspiracies of the kind.

We’ve become numb to it.

A click-bit article headline tells us that John Dean has five words. It is not all that interesting. “This is worse than Watergate”. Yeah, but Watergate was not as bad as Watergate.

In a previous decade I heard ramblings from the likes of Rush Limbaugh to the effect that John Dean — or maybe it was Woodward and Bernstein– were downplaying the importance of Clinton’s indiscretions for purely legacy blocking reasons. But he would probably claim the same premise with this opposite approach.

I do not know what the whataboutism for the moment is, really. I see the headline at the National Review that Hillary is back and hypocritical as ever. Did she chime in on something, other than her recent Atlantic article which I guess urged young men to be less solitary and big their grandma more? (The gist I pick up second hand — I did not waste a free click on Hillary Clinton). Elsewhere, a writer for the New York Post — urging the obvious — Republicans ought get someone else in — referenced the indictments as varying in quality — the most solid the cases of the midfield carted off records which apes Hillary Clinton. And you know — just for the sake of argument — comfort a direct parallel in details. What is a campaign promise explicitly on target with this worth and why is it worthless? Think about it in relation when a Rod Blagoevich promises to sweep out the corruption of the former Illinois governor. Didn’t. And think about it when Jimmy Carter promises the most non-lying presidency ever, as against that previous previous guy. Basically did, but set himself up badly by human nature that someone in his administration will and so comes a reputation of flakiness in letting people go too quickly.

The Against Me song “I was a teenage anarchist”? The song where the singer pauses after saying his take-away message, “The Revolution was a lie.”? It is a tried true psy-ops technique. One of the same with The Beatles’s Revolution and The Who ‘s “Won’t get fooled again”. They’re telling the kids the revolution is a lie so you will Canadian and suck it!

To be sure, watching the video, I am lost instead 2, 3, and 4 of the Revolution. Step one is shop-lift, and get chased by the police. I mention shop-lifting only because it is mentioned by someone in the comments in getting disproportionate response. Step 4 is Revolutionary Anarchy — probably more of a state of being than a realized state anyway now that I think about it, so maybe the question marks in question 2 and 3 are answered right there. Anarchy is the People you meet along the way?

Funny thing, too. A comment that is snide gets a response — conspiratorial — “George Soros bot”. Horse-shoe theory at play.

Is there anyone out there commenting that the women’s US soccer failed due to them being oh so woke? Whether this is the case of not, I guess it can always be popped up to knock down and score political points somewhat. Surely someone is easily spotted as blathering about that score.

But hey hey hey —

The team looked bad—I can’t remember a U.S. women’s team playing a brand of soccer that was this unappealing, even if it was still vastly superior to that played by any U.S. men’s team in my lifetime—but they played well.

I have generally enjoyed watching the American World Cup soccer team over the years, and generally not the women’s team. The reason is geopolitical — look, here is America’s team in not America’s sport. They’ll try their best, win a couple games, take a moral victory in losing a hard fought game to someone real, and it’s all good. America gets to be the underdog for once! The women’s team? Well, they do give a sense of the reality of different country’s opportunities with women, women athletes in particular, the fact that they are a top tier team in a lower tier for the country sport gives a sign of the imbalance. There might be a political irksome point in the marketing — as far back as 1999 when some star player whose name I don’t remember but remember ed for longer than any men’s player removed her shirt and posed arms’ out-stretched for future commercial use. There was a sense they were really selling us hard on Title 9 — which, of course, seems quaint these days now that the conservative position is to Defend Women’s Sports.

And therein lay the reason you can not blame “wokeness” on the failure of the women’s soccer team. Because by the definition, a woke women’s soccer team would have some trans-gender women on the team. Ringers, if you will. Which, to be sure, would kind of be hilarious in a culture war head rush fight.

The cross currents in how we discuss these with the electoral politics. I think the women’s team was talked up going into 2016 in the same eagerness as a Hillary Clinton presidency. But then things ran aground with the Ghostbusters movie. If only that Ghostbusters movie has been any good, we could avoided this whole President Trump thing. Today we have a Barbie movie that is bigger than big. It is too bad no woman is running for president in the general, though — but then again maybe it is just as well — the failure of the women’s soccer team is likely overpowering the success of the Barbie movie. On the score of opportunity lost, if we could only transport the Barbie movie back in time to aid Hillary Clinton’s defeat of Trump and flip it with the Ghostbusters movie for today where it would do no harm.

Question: should I be reading the Huff Post articles on how we need to take our 15 year old sons to Barbie so they can learn not to be like Ken?