Donald Trump Promises Universal Health Care

On ABC news tonight John Brennon the outgoing CIA chief has criticized Donald Trump’s remarks about comparing the CIA to Nazi activity for leaking information.  I think this is an unprecedented first and a new low for an incoming President.  Meanwhile Donald Trump is promising Universal Health Care for all.  He reiterated his promise not to cut Medicare and to give them a good health care system.  I believe there was a remark made in a blog lately is “When does a promise turn into a threat?”   For the Republicans such a remark would be a threat.  But in the broader scheme of things whenever a fascist type personality takes over,  you have to stear your way through the morass of idle promises and look for the looming threats behind the bushes.  Donald Trump after all got his success from a reliance on a very crude fact of American politics of “Whoever promises the most change is the candidate who wins”.  It seems to not matter whether it’s good change or bad change.  We only have just over three days to go.  I know there is an adage that who ever compares anything to Adolph Hitler loses the argument.   But the pure fact is that with any military junta with a strong man in control you run accross the same perils.  The people go after a strong authorian figure in sort of a Messiah complex thinking if we yield our wills to the Leader he will lead us to the promised land.  But it almost never happens.  

Gene Cernan, the last of two astronauts to walk on the moon, died today at age 82.  I believe that would have been Apollo XVI in December of 1972.  After this the Nixon administration made the decision to destroy all of the remaining booster rockets.  It was always Gene Cernan’s wish that man would return to the moon.  And we’ve been waiting a long time.

At Anaheim High School, not so far away, students are now working with 3 D printers.  They are “students who are learning the skills for tomorrow”.  But what they are producing is amazing.  They are making prosthetic hands for a fraction of the cost they would otherwise cost.  I have thought for a while is someone really wanted to reak havoc they would mass produce firearms and floot the market with them putting people out of business.

Meanwhile it seems Federico was open for giving hair cuts in there.  I passed by the room just to check it out once more and now Federico was in this cluttered room giving a haircut to Steve Carone.  I think maybe he should have cut his hair shorter.  It looked a little sloppy but he says Steve didn’t want it too short.  I got a short haircut from Federico and I guess I’ll be tapped for the funds tomorrow when I go for Money Draw.  Federico was pretty quick in giving the haircut.  Maybe he was in a hurry. 

It is my hope that the first posting of the day (Monday) doesn’t get lost in the shuffle because there’s an awful lot of good stuff in this posting.  I suggest people read everything in it carefully.  I know from experience that words of wisdom don’t grow on trees.  And when you come across a whole bunch of them you know you've found a good thing.  

If Donald Trump were God and he'd managed to create heaven and earth and subsequent to the act discovered that Sin had invaded his Creation, would Trump be the sort of guy to wad the thing up like a piece of paper and throw it in the trash.  Or perhaps would Trump be the sort of fellow who's words of Obama rang in his ears whispering "You didn't do that" and figured even if he somehow managed to do it once, he'd never be able to pull off another creation like it.  

Warning Signs of Danger Ahead in 2017

The Titanic Sails at Dawn - Bob Dylan

By John Whitehead, the Rutherford Institute.

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?” ― Chuck Palahniuk,Invisible Monsters

Despite our best efforts, we in the American police state seem to be stuck on repeat, reliving the same set of circumstances over and over and over again: egregious surveillance, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, etc.

Unfortunately, as a nation we’ve become so desensitized to the government’s acts of violence, so accustomed to reports of government corruption, and so anesthetized to the sights and sounds of Corporate America marching in lockstep with the police state that few seem to pay heed to the warning signs blaring out the message: Danger Ahead.

Remember, the Titanic received at least four warnings from other ships about the presence of icebergs in its path, with the last warning issued an hour before disaster struck. All four warnings were ignored.

Like the Titanic, we’re plowing full steam ahead into a future riddled with hidden and not-so-hidden dangers. We too have been given ample warnings, only to have them drowned out by a carefully choreographed cacophony of political noise, cultural distractions and entertainment news—what the Romans termed “bread and circuses”—aimed at keeping the American people polarized, pacified and easily manipulated.


However, there is still danger ahead. The peril to our republic remains the same.

As long as a permanent, unelected bureaucracy—a.k.a. the shadow government— continues to call the shots in the halls of power and the reach of the police state continues to expand, the crisis has not been averted.

Here’s a glimpse of some of the nefarious government programs we’ll be encountering on our journey through the treacherous waters of 2017.

Mandatory quarantines without due process or informed consent: Under a new rule proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, government agents will be empowered to indefinitely detain any traveler they suspect of posing a medical risk to others without providing an explanation, subject them to medical tests without their consent, and carry out such detentions and quarantines without any kind of due process or judicial review.

Mental health assessments by non-medical personnel: As a result of a nationwide push to train a broad spectrum of so-called gatekeepers such as pastors, teachers, hair stylists, bartenders, police officers and EMTs in mental health first-aid training, more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported by non-medical personnel and detained for having mental health issues.

Tracking chips for citizens: Momentum is building for the government to be able to track citizens, whether through the use of RFID chips embedded in a national ID card or through microscopic chips embedded in one’s skin. In December 2016, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing police to track individuals suffering from some form of mental disability such as Alzheimer’s or autism by way of implanted chips.

Military training to deal with anti-establishment movements in megacities: The future,according to a Pentagon training video, will be militaristic, dystopian and far from friendly to freedom. Indeed, if this government propaganda-piece that is being used to train special forces is to be believed, the only thing that can save the world from outright anarchy—in the eyes of the government, at least—is the military working in conjunction with local police. The video confirms what I’ve been warning about for so long: in the eyes of the U.S. government and its henchmen, the battlefield of the future is the American home front.

Government censorship of anything it classifies as disinformation: This year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which allocates $619 billion for war and military spending, not only allows the military to indefinitely detain American citizens by placing them beyond the reach of the Constitution, but it also directs the State Department to establish a national anti-propaganda center to “counter disinformation and propaganda.” Translation: the government plans to crack down on anyone attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights by exposing government wrongdoing, while persisting in peddling its own brand of fake news.

Threat assessments: Government agents—with the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software—are spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state. It’s the American police state rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

War on cash: The government and its corporate partners are engaged in a concerted campaign to do away with large bills such as $20s, $50s, $100s and shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. As economist Steve Forbes concludes, “The real reason for this war on cash—start with the big bills and then work your way down—is an ugly power grab by Big Government. People will have less privacy: Electronic commerce makes it easier for Big Brother to see what we’re doing, thereby making it simpler to bar activities it doesn’t like, such as purchasing salt, sugar, big bottles of soda and Big Macs.”

Expansive surveillance: Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, will still be listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers who work with the government to monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere. In such an environment, we are all suspects to be spied on, searched, scanned, frisked, monitored, tracked and treated as if we’re potentially guilty of some wrongdoing or other.

Militarized police: Americans are finding their once-peaceful communities transformed into military outposts, complete with tanks, weaponry, and other equipment designed for the battlefield. Now, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are preparing to turn the nation’s police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone extraction software, Stingray devices and so much more.

Police shootings of unarmed citizens: Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Indeed, as a special report by The Washington Post reveals, despite heightened awareness of police misconduct, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from the year before.

False flags and terrorist attacks: Despite the government’s endless propaganda about the threat of terrorism, statistics show that you are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack. You are 11,000 times more likely to die from an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane. You are 1,048 times more likely to die from a car accident than a terrorist attack. You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack. And you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist.

Endless wars to keep America’s military’s empire employed: The military industrial complex that has advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, is the very entity that will continue to profit the most from America’s expanding military empire. The U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest employer, with more than 3.2 million employees. Thus far, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out more than $1.6 trillion to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When you add in military efforts in Pakistan, as well as the lifetime price of health care for disabled veterans and interest on the national debt, that cost rises to $4.4 trillion.

Attempts by the government to identify, target and punish so-called domestic “extremists”: The government’s anti-extremism program will, in many cases, be utilized to render otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist. To this end, police will identify, monitor and deter individuals who exhibit, express or engage in anything that could be construed as extremist before they can become actual threats. This is pre-crime on an ideological scale.

SWAT team raids: More than 80% of American communities have their own SWAT teams, with more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, kill citizens, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and most often in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually some small amount of drugs.

Erosions of private property: Private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, you’re no longer the owner of your property.

Overcriminalization: The government’s tendency towards militarization and overcriminalization, in which routine, everyday behaviors become targets of regulation and prohibition, has resulted in Americans getting arrested for making and selling unpasteurized goat cheese, cultivating certain types of orchids, feeding a whale, holding Bible studies in their homes, and picking their kids up from school.

Strip searches and the denigration of bodily integrity: Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Accounts are on the rise of individuals—men and women alike—being subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of “routine” traffic stops.

Drones: As corporations and government agencies alike prepare for their part in the coming drone invasion—it is expected that at least 30,000 drones will occupy U.S. airspace by 2020, ushering in a $30 billion per year industry—it won’t be long before American citizens find themselves to be the target of these devices. Drones—unmanned aerial vehicles—will come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to middle-sized copter drones that can deliver pizzas to massive “hunter/killer” Predator warships that unleash firepower from on high.

Prisons: America’s prisons, housing the largest number of inmates in the world and still growing, have become money-making enterprises for private corporations that manage the prisons in exchange for the states agreeing to maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years. And how do you keep the prisons full? By passing laws aimed at increasing the prison population, including the imposition of life sentences on people who commit minor or nonviolent crimes such as siphoning gasoline.

Censorship: First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

Fascism: As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nation’s capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. With Big Business and Big Government having fused into a corporate state, the president and his state counterparts—the governors—have become little more than CEOs of the Corporate State, which day by day is assuming more government control over our lives. Never before have average Americans had so little say in the workings of their government and even less access to their so-called representatives.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, put it best when he warned: “Take alarm at the first experiment with liberties.” Anyone with even a casual knowledge about current events knows that the first experiment on our freedoms happened long ago.

We are fast moving past the point of no return when it comes to restoring our freedoms. Worse, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we can barely see the old America with its revolutionary principles and value for independence in the rear view mirror. The only reality emerging generations will know is the one constructed for them by the powers-that-be, and you can rest assured that it will not be a reality that favors individuality, liberty or anything or anyone who challenges the status quo.

As a senior advisor to George W. Bush observed, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

In other words, the government has been operating ten steps ahead for quite some time now, and we have yet to catch up, let alone catch our breath as the tides of change swirl around us.

You’d better tighten your seatbelts, folks, because we could be in for a rough ride in 2017.

Flashbacks

The legacy of Martin Lither King day wasn't all sweetness and a bed of roses.  As the substitute guy for Thom Hartman points out- - the civil rights movement had to overcome a lot of violence directed their way and John Lewis is a hero of the Edmond Pettis Bridge in March of 1965.  Even conservatives now are coming to John Lewis' defense saying that Trump doesn't realize who he's criticizing and what an American hero John Lewis is.  People place Blacks under a higher standard.  Even with Jackie Robinson in baseball he was held to an extrordenary standard of self control and grace that would have undone a lesser man, with all the pressures Jackie Robinson faced. Martin Luther King has to overcome the powerful tempation with all the violence against him to be violent himself.  After there were people in the FBI who were writing King letters saying that he knows what he needs to do now.  He needs to go KILL HIMSELF.   I was just talking with Joe Drisco this morning and he said "Everybody saw the Martin Luther King assination coming".  We are now on the verge of appointing an attorney general who had a history of racism in his past.  Many others besides John Lewis are saying that Donald Trump is not a legatimate president.  People have dug out of the legal archives court rulings that say that the Supreme Court has the power to void a US election if it's felt that the election was inherently not kosher.  Indeed in the late fall of 2000 the Supreme Court stepped in - - intervened- - to the vote counting process in the state of Florida between Bush and Gore and invalidated the whole process saying that George W Bush was President and added that "This ruling shall not be regarded as a precident for any subsequent court ruling."  So maybe that's their out.  Maybe they think what they did them was illegal.  So they won't "intervene" again even if it's suspected that a foreign power has interfered with our election.  There are also those who say that Trump hasn't properly divested himself of property and that he continues to receive "emaluments" from foreign powers, which the constitution forbids.  

FLASHBACK DECEMBER 10, 2009: But Christianity has its legacy of violence.  There are the Crusades, of course.  Then there is all the violence, both verbal and otherwise, against the Jews.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why Jewish people are so resigned to believe anything Christians tell them about their faith.  Why aren’t they out picketing that Christianity is a dirty religion that spouts nothing but vicious lies about the Jewish people?  People believe Jesus’ words saying the trouble with the Jews and the Romans is that the Jews didn’t LOVE the Romans enough, and if they did they would have peace.  But the Christians were not at all coy about wanting to take back the Holy Land from the Moslems, or when they conducted the inquisition or burned heretics and witches at the stake.  And there were a lot of “good people” who “just weren’t sure about how they felt” about Hitler’s actions against the Jews.  But even in their Holy books, like the book of Revelation, this blood lust goes on, wishing not blessings on their enemies, but rather eternal torment in the Lake of Fire.  Jesus on KFI has spoken often of the justness of eternal Hell Fire.  And his reasoning is that since God is such a GOOD god, then anyone who would “refuse his gracious atonement” is deserving no less than eternal torment for ever and ever.  Back in 2005 I raised the example of a dog, that bites President Bush or someone important and another dog that bites a homeless pickpocket, who engages in seedy con schemes and in generally is just a shiftless, worthless fellow.  Jesus would say that the first dog needs to suffer eternal torment in Hell because of who he bit.  But you say, “It’s just a dog, stupid, he doesn’t know any better”.  Well, that is just my point.  At the end of the book of Jonah God reminds Jonah of all the people “There are 120,000 people of Nineveh who don’t know their right hand from their left” or to use the vernacular, “Theologically, don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground”. (Selah)

The following sayings are from April 2012

PEOPLE WHO ARE UNABLE TO READ THE FINE PRINT – MISS A LOT OF THINGS IN LIFE

Doing the right things in life is more important than “Doing Things Right”

You never get a second chance to make a First Impression

There are no “Do Overs” in life, much as Neil of KFI says.  In God’s sight, even the smallest sin has an inherently Eternal Nature to it.

A Computer program that answers different questions than the ones you wanted to know, can be reprogrammed to answer the Right Questions.  So it is with the Human Intellect

Figures Don’t Lie – But Liars Figure

Just like a fetus – An Aborted Idea just might have been the one that saved the World

A bird or a plane cannot fly without both a Left wing and a Right wing

A true Threat is one that will Do You In in the end, regardless of whether further Initiative is taken – by either Side

Like apples and oranges - - You can neither add fractions nor Compare Factors – unless you first have a common denominator   (Selah)

He who makes an ambiguous promise will reap an Ambiguous reward – even if the Promise is Kept.  (Selah0

Vagueness and Obscurity are the last refuges of the mentally and morally unfocused

There are three kinds of “Spreading”.  There is the spread of ideas and culture, there is the spreading of concrete or butter on your bread, and then there is the spreading which comes from Verbal Diaria - - and the victims have to wash the excrement off of themselves

People who feel threatened by the petty and insignificant – Are Small people to begin with.

Everything has Form.  And to have Form means inherently to have bounderies and limits

He who is always complaining of Bitterness in Others – has probably never tasted bitterness himself - - or he would not make such a stupid statement.

Forgiveness is less a Virtue - - and more of a Business Proposition

Human Minds are like plumbing.  Love the Pipes; Hate the Excriment

He who lacks Gravitas - - even if he is the most accurate Bowler in the world will never throw a strike and never win a match.

I just have a few questions for you.  And as long as it takes for you to answer them, that’s how long you will remain here.  (Bob Dylan)

Grammar is Important.  He who lacks grammer works with an improper yardstick throwing off all of his measurements, so that in the end, the Blueprint is Useless

It’s a healthy organism that is able to expel mentally unhealthy thinking.  It’s a healthy society that can expel evil people and pathological thinking from its midst.

All Liars are not Christians - - but All Christians are Liars

Courage is a Virtue - - even if practiced by an Evil person

Religion is like the control – Z character in DOS.  Only you and not I knows what comes after it.  Whether what comes after it is a fact unknown to me, but what I can be sure of is that what comes after it CANNOT be relivant to me.

I’m Sorry.  I Forgot to respond to a Fault that exists only in your own Mind that you Forgot to tell me about.

Love when practiced by an Evil person - - Becomes a Vice

What occurs in the Afterlife is irrelevant to me - - since there is no time when I plan on not being Alive.  The healthy and strong have many pleasures in life - - the starving and the sick have few- - THE DEAD HAVE NONE

And that’s show we ended that.  This is Friday the thirteenth and the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is tomorrow evening.

The following is the unaltered version of the January 2013 posting.  Revolution Is in the Air.

THE WHOLE ENCHALADA. I HAVE AN IDEA FOR MARKETING THE RED, THE WHITE, AND THE BLUE :"BEST OF' BEATLE ALBUMS TOGETHER BUT SINCE THERE IS AN OVERLAP OF THREE SONGS BETWEEN THE BLUE AND THE WHITE WE REMEDY THIS SITUATION BY JUST ELIMINATING THESE THREE SONGS ON ONE OF THE ALBUM. DIG THIS LINE UP.

CD number one of the White Album

GETTING DOWN WITH THE BEAT (the "rapper" drumming of Strawberry Fields from CD number two of Anthology II)
HELTER SKELTER PART ONE (The "slow version" on Anthology III)
DEAR PRUDENCE
GLASS ONION
INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE (the opening track of Anthology Vol III)
WILD HONEY PIE (slip in a few seconds longer pause than normal)
BUNGALO BILL (fade at final bassoon part)
STEP INSIDE, LOVE / LOS PARANOIS (from Anthology III)
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN
- - - - - vinyl break here- - - - -
MARTHA, MY DEAR
I'M SO TIRED (KLOS version with the weird added guitar part)
BLACKBIRD
PIGGIES (with reversed stereo channels)
ROCKY RACOON
DON'T PASS ME BY
NOT GUILTY
WHY DON'T WE DO IT IN THE ROAD?
I WILL
JULIA
GOOD-BYE, MY LOVE (KLOS popular track)

CD number two

BIRTHDAY
YER BLUES
WHAT'S THE NEW MARY JANE? (from Anthology III)
MOTHER NATURE'S SON
ME AND MY MONKEY
SEXY SADIE
HELTER SKELTER - SLIGHT RETURN (do the entire Mono mix of the song, but then tack on the original stereo album version after the second fade)
LONG, LONG, LONG TIME
- - - - - vinyl break here- - -
REVOLUTION NO. ONE (KLOS and You Tube video exclusive version. Begin a slow fade taking up about fifteen seconds after the six minute mark)
HONEY PIE (reversed stereo channels)
SAVORY TRUFFLE (reversed stereo channels)
CRY, BABY, CRY
BROTHER CAN YOU TAKE ME BACK? (extended KLOS exclusive version)
REVOLUTION NO. 9 (reversed stereo channels)
GOOD-NIGHT

A Little This and That

They are talking how John Lewis said that Trump was an illigitamate president because he got help from Russia to win the election.  He’s joining a list of people who are boycotting Trump’s inauguration.  Trump tweeted back that Blacks are seething in the crime ridden ghetto and Lewis should spend more time in his own district.  That’s a really silly remark.  There are a lot of scheduled protests over the next week or so and I hope the democrats will make them count.  I still maintain that the commercial media will bend over backwards to suppress any coverage of them.  Now in late breaking news we have the current CIA director blasting Donald Trump as it pertains to Russia.  "I don't think Trump has a grasp of the issues", he says.  Also the Wringling Brothers Circus is leaving town for the last time.  Meanwhile Glenda said she had coffee for me and I saw her just now and then met her passing in the hall and went in her room and got some.  I had just been debating whether to either go to the bakery for a cup or else use the debit card on coffee.   But if I don’t have to spend money I won’t. 

The Green Bay Packers just beat the Dallas Cowboys.  The score was 21 to 3 Green Bay early in the game and the Cowboys have never had an eighteen point deficit this season.  This was the eighth playoff meeting between Green Bay and Dallas.  Generally Green Bay kept comfortably ahead during the game.  When I came back from dinner the score was now tied at 28 apiece, which surprised me.  Each team scored a field goal making it 31 to 31.  Then Green Bay got lucky on a 36 yard catch at the out of bounds line.  One lineman overruled another one and it was a catch.  So there was a fifty yard field goal to kick and Dallas tried to ice GB with a last second time out where the thing had already been kicked, and they had to do it over.  Now Atlanta will get to play the Conference Final in their home stadium.  

Four years ago things weren't as bad as now.  Just think about it.  All of us were four years younger and more vibrant.  My Mother still lived at the Regency before her "downgrade" of two years ago due to failing health.  I still had a coffee maker and we got to smoke on the second story patio, where you have the jacaranda tree and get to watch the traffic.  KTLK was still on the air as a progressive over the air station.  You had people like Ed Schultz and Randy Rhodes on, both of which have bitten the dust.  Nationally the Democrats controlled both the White House and the US Senate.  There was talk of immigration reform being passed.  President Obama had high hopes of gun control legislation after the Newtown school masacre.  There was kind of a thought that "the Republicans have learned their lesson now".   The line-up for "Days of our Lives" was very different in those days.  There is one paragraph written in January of 2013 and about half the people referenced in that paragraph are either dead or no longer on the show.   Our version of the "White" album appears in "The Soap Opera of Life" in January of 2013.  I was going to paste it over but if you're curious you can look it up yourself.  

The New England Patriots beat the Houston Texans 34 to 16.   The Atlanta Falcons beat the Seattle Sea Hawks 46 to 20 in the early game.  The game was held in the evening in Foxborough and broadcast on CBS.  Unfortunately when I went to turn the channel to the game a little after six channel two would not come in.  This is the first time in the six and a half years of this TV that one TV station was completely blocked.  All of the other stations came in.  I finally got the thing working around seven and managed to watch the rest of the game.  However on Sunday I moved the antenna out of position and noticed that the tolerance for this position was very narrow and one little hint of a variance will blow it.  So I managed to find the exact position the antenna was in.  I watched the thing with this White House photographer taking two thousand photographs a day he claims.  That would be well in excess of four million photographs in his carrier.  How could any human being keep track of so many or give each photo any more than the vaguest glance?  I don’t remember what I watched later in the evening.  I woke up in an anxious state.  Last night I got medication from Federico and got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for a second night in a row.  That’s a good thing.  In the morning I got medication from Ida.  I kept the antenna adjusted so that channel two would come in.  There was no football game in the morning because of that ice storm in Kansas City.  I went to the store as she was just opening up at ten after seven and the coffee was already made.  I exchanged one small bowl of sugar frosted flakes for a slightly larger small bowl of it.  I had one cup of black coffee and got a refill with cream and sugar in it from Rene.  We had our scrambled eggs and toast, butter and jelly.  We also had hashed browns, but they don’t make them very well around here.  I toggled between “Face the Nation” but mostly I had on “This Week”.   George Stephanopolis was pretty hard in the people he interviewed.  That’s a good thing.  I still had a few cigarettes.  I listened to “Breakfast with the Beatles”.  It was uneventful except it did have the live concert version of “Beware of Darkness” and George introduced the entire Bangle Desh concert line-up.  Now they say “Give Me Some Truth” actually dates back to 1968.  We said that several years ago when others were saying the song dated back to 1969.   After lunch it was Americana with American cover versions done by the Beatles- - mostly. 

Scott Wilkinson gave his report of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  I guess that thing is really huge in terms of floor area.  I wonder if you didn’t know if you could tell the difference between this year’s show and one from say 2013?  I had forgotten they had a lot of floor real estate devoted to cars.   Somebody mentioned inkless printing paper where the laser beam just burns letters into the paper itself and you never need ink.  The problem with that is that it would seem you’d need some really specialized paper in order to get the desired amount of detail and contrast.  Last year they gave up on Plasma TV.  They still do have LCD.  But I guess mostly it’s LED or OLED or now QLED or something.  Now they have a system where you have a blue LED and then the red and green absorb blue light and change it to red or green, and this is supposed to give greater color depth.  Johnny Jett was on.  I remember hearing the remark before that you should mix live video in with your slide presentation to make it more relevant.

Rhapsody in Black had January of 1955, a year I’ve been waiting a long time to hear from.  They played a non standard version of “Let Me Go, Lover” and a Hank Ballard song called “Why Are You So Stingy” or something.  They played “Ling Ting Tong”, which is by the Five Keys.  An old KRTH classic.  They must have raided China Town for all of those instruments.  They also played the original version of “Rock with me, Henry”.  They also played a version of “Blue Velvet”.  They played “Sincerely” by the Moonglows.  They played “That’s why I have to hit up upside the head” by some woman and “My Baby Likes to Mambo” by the Robins.  They played the original version of “All Night Long”.  They played quite a number of blues numbers.  They played a number of Elvis selections including “I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles, and the original of “Baby, Let’s Play House” and “Reconsider Baby”.  They also played both “Tomorrow Night” and “Tweetly Tweet” by LaVerne Baker.  They played “Earth Angel” and “Pledging My Love” by Johnny Ace and at that I figured I had about heard all the songs I expected to except for the song I was anticipating hearing most, that I didn’t hear.  (That’s today’s psychic question of the week)  I went out and hung out and smoked.

Chicago Police Dept Fingered in Justice Department Report

Loretta Lynch has singled out the Chicago police department for specific condemnation over and above other even worse police departments such as Philadelphia.  A sprawling federal investigation into the Chicago police found that officers engage “in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force,” part of larger, ingrained failures in how the department trains officers and reviews misconduct, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced Friday.  The Justice Department released a scathing 164-page report elaborating on how police officers in the country’s third-biggest city use force, “including deadly force, that is unreasonable” as well as unconstitutional.  What I haven't found in the report is an explanation as to why the gun deaths figure in Chicago is so high.  Why don't they adopt Mike Bloomberg's philosophy of stop and frisk to help get dangerous firearms off the street.  For all the "proactive policing" we see in the report, none of it shows up as reduced crime figures.  This report is the culmination of a 13-month investigation into the Chicago Police Department, one launched amid a firestorm prompted by video footage of a white officer fatally shooting a black teenager.  Federal investigators excoriated the department and city officials alike for what they called “systemic deficiencies.” They said their inquiry found that the Chicago police force did not provide officers with proper guidance for using force, did not properly investigate improper uses of force and did not hold officers accountable for such incidents. Investigators also faulted the city’s methods of handling officer discipline, saying that process “lacks integrity.”  Vanita Gupta, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, said that Chicago officers were found to have shot people who posed no immediate threat and shocked people with Tasers simply for not following verbal commands.  During the probe, investigators said they found cases where children were subjected to force for minor issues, including a 16-year-old girl hit with a baton and then shocked with a Taser for not leaving school when she was found carrying a cellphone. In another case described in the report, an officer “forcibly handcuffed a 12-year-old Latino boy” riding his bicycle near his father and refused to explain why.  Gupta faulted the department for inadequate training, saying it used decades-old videos that provided guidance inconsistent with current law and even the department’s own policies. She also described Chicago’s accountability system as “broken,” with officers rarely being held accountable for their misdeeds.   Twelve more specific examples can be found on the internet.  

[Read the full Justice Department report into the Chicago police]

WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval Friday for speedy action to repeal the Affordable Care Act, putting Congress on track to undo the most significant health care law in a half century.  By a vote of 227 to 198, the House approved a budget blueprint that allows Republicans to obliterate major provisions of President Obama’s health care law without the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.  The vote, coming a week before President-elect Donald J. Trump’sinauguration, places Republicans squarely in position to accomplish their long-held goal of dismantling Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement.  But the quick action by Congress adds urgency to the vexing question of what comes next. While pursuing repeal with zeal, Republicans are far from a consensus on how to go about replacing the health care law, under which more than 20 million Americans have gained health insurance.  Of course the expression was “Repeal and replace”, which Trump is on record as saying “It could be the same day or the same hour”.  The Republicans have had eight long years to come up with a “replacement” for the Affordable Care Act and no action has been taken.  I have not seen so much as one coherent plan which in any way could be called a “replacement” for Obama Care.

 The Obama administration after all these years is revoking the wet foot, dry foot policy.  If you make it to the United States clearly on dry land then they’ll let you stay in the country.  If however you are in a boat approaching the shore or even wading through the waves, then it’s a foot chase with the authorities. If they nab you before your feet are firmly on dry sand then you have to go back,.  Otherwise you are allowed to stay.  This policy was only with Cuba.  But now it’s no more. 

 After ten there was this call in guy on Thom’s show who said that Trump’s position with Russia is actually more awkward now because everyone has accused Trump of being under the control of Russia.  Now he has no negotiating room, so the argument goes.  So Trump will have to bend over backwards to prove he’s really tough with Russia and thus a major military confrontation with Russia is more likely and not less.  Here’s an example of the iron fist under the velvet glove when it comes to Russia and a more restrained view toward the Iranian nuclear treaty of March 2015.  Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States must honor the “imperfect ­arms-control agreement” with Iran that Trump has vowed to dismantle because “when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”  He also took a more adversarial stance than Trump has toward Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and cited Moscow as one of the nation’s top threats.  “I’ve never found a better guide for the way ahead than studying the histories. Since [the 1945 meeting of world powers at] Yalta, we have a long list of times we’ve tried to engage positively with Russia. We have a relatively short list of successes in that regard,” Mattis said. “I think right now, the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with [in] Mr. Putin and we recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.”   Someone pointed out yesterday that if Kennedy were under the same pressure to "be tough" and "prove himself" against the Soviet Union because there were rumors Kennedy was a secret Russian sympathizer than the nuclear option or at least a full scale invasion would be very much on the table during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Our frame of reference is so skewed we can sit around and talk about an incoming President being peed on by prostitutes in Russia without batting an eye.  He seems bent on out-doing the sexual exploits of Bill Clinton.  Meanwhile he has this secretary of Defense, General Mattis, who on multiple occasions has covered up war crimes of himself and others getting them out of legal peril.  Who knows what sort of frame of reference we’ll have in four years?  This sis the most thin skinned man we've ever had in the White House who tweets and takes offense at everything like throwing a childish tantrum.  There was something highly Fascistic and authoritarian about that press conference of the other day.  It would have been better just to throw the floor open to the reporter's questions the first thing and let the chips fall where they may.  We hear the number of inaugural balls is being cut from nine to three this year.  My guess is that President Trump won't be walking any part of the inaugural route.  There are scads of protests scheduled on Thursday and Friday and Saturday.  There is a marijuana "4-20" outfit that intends to pass out joints to anyone in attendance and four minutes and twenty seconds into the speech they all intend to light up.  This of course will be in violation of Federal Law, so we'll have to see how the authorities handle it.  And of course Stephanie Miller will be having her sexy liberal tour on January 21st.   And Rumor has it that the television media is going to be in a highly censoring mood and will bend over backwards to keep the public to find out what is really going on.  Of course this is part of the fascistic society age in which we are entering.  People thought the campaign was bad and how glad they'd be when it was over.  Of course this transition period is worse with Trump already making all these proclamations about the economy like he's already president.  I don't foresee things getting any better after he's President.   I think it really is the Twilight of Liberty in this country.  Didn't the patriot act and some of these other repressive laws passed by congress in the heat of 9 - 11 have sunset clauses.  That's a clause they put in a bill to aswage the wary and get their votes, "Yes, but it's only temporary".  I wonder how many of Adolph Hitler's "emergency plans" were "temporary" at first.  

A Convention of Angry White Men

This is Tuesday July 19, 2016 and the big news is the fear and hate mongering of this convention.  It should be called ‘Making America Insecure Again” or perhaps “Making America even More Agitated”.  The media coverage was horrible.  I even tried CNN and their stuff didn’t appear to be live.  They just played a liberal redneck who lives near Bowling Green, Kentucky, where “We’re still racist down here; we just hide it better now”.  This convention was a convention of Angry White Men.  It may not even be fair to use the word “white” in that sentence.  Who tar a whole race like that?  Donald Trump’s wife was a body without a brain.  Her teleprompter speech did nothing to dispel the notion that she has nothing upstairs.  Maybe she should have delivered the speech in her native Slavenian.  She and Donald have a nine year old son together.  The media talked over everybody else.  I looked to KCET but first they had national news and then had something involving ice cream cones.  The Federation didn’t take at all kindly to the convention.  The newspaper editorials were flooded with raging against this farse of a convention.  Stu Baby took particular note of the Donald’s immigration policy, alias his plan t make Mexico pay for the Wall.  He’s going to conthiscate the hard earner money with the sweat of their brow that immigrants earned at minimum wage (or lower) that they set aside to send back to their relatives in Mexico.  Trump wants to intercept these funds and use it toward building The Wall.  That’s declaring a virtual state of War with the Mexican People.  I mean it’s not as if these immigrants were shipping his money back to Mexico.  But if there’s still not enough money to pay for the ten billion dollar wall, then he’s going to hike the price of visas so that people coming here legally will have a more difficult time at it.  A lot of the speakers I just heard about ticked me off.  There was some victim of “Fast and Furious” speaking.  Then there was the Duck Dynesty guy who opened the convention, Phil Robertson.  “Donald Trump will always tell you the truth as he sees it”.  Maybe he better get his eyes checked.  Then there was a relative of someone who died in Bengazi.  Then there was Julie, Julie, Julie, Giuliani.  This speech was one hysterical, over-blown collection of tired rhetoric.  He just threw every tired event of the past he could think of like blowing up the Iranian nuclear treaty- - and threw it into the speech.  This could be the first party convention where the party throwing the convention actually sees their poll numbers going down for this week!   I don’t know what they were talking about when they said it was the “Kinder, gentler side of Donald Trump”.  I went for medication at twenty to eight and even at that hour there was a line.  Then though it wasn’t yet eight o clock they were having commercials or media commentary.  I never tried to get coffee from Glen.  I saw him out on the benches earlier and he wouldn’t even let me have a butt.  Then there was that Ninja Warrior thing on KNBC.  I watched that for an hour and then made ready for bed, though I wasn’t really tired.  I guess I war bored.  Nobody made it through “the final four” obsticles, as far as I saw,  unless I was distracted at the time.  Basically it was a lost evening.  I’d like to see a complete schedule of speakers at the convention and a way you can hear and see them.  Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, refused to set foot in the convention hall, and won’t be doing so.  Also the Romneys, the Bushes, and the Mc Cains won’t be speaking or even present at this convention.  It’s not a good sign that the three last Republican nominees are disgusted by this convention.  It least I’m not the only one who was utterly repelled by this convention. 

They say the evening session of the Republican Convention is just getting underway but they’re just having the regular EWN news.  In the day session the anti Trump delegates attempted to force a vote but even though there were enough states to legally entitle them to do that, the Party leadership “twisted some arms” and got them to “voluntarily” retract their request because it would interfere with the TV schedule or something.  Maybe they'll break your kneecaps like the mafia or else they've got your wife bound and gagged somewhere ready to drop the cyanide capsules lioke the old Superman episodes.  We won’t hear about the protests outside unless someone gets beaten up or killed.  If I were the media I'd interview these protestors just to give them a little media time in the "public interest" of making their views known.  I turned on CNN at three and there was live music and they showed a street corner so I turned it back to Norman Goldman.  Ohio is an open carry state so there is a probability of some gun incident.  They’ve changed their slogan from “Make America Great Again” to “Make America Safe Again”.  Trumps wife will be speaking.  I think it’ll be the first case of a foreign born first lady since Van Buren or something.   Hillary is speaking in Cincinatti today.  Another officer in the Freddy Gray “rough ride” incident was acquitted by that same judge.  Norman reminds that that sometimes the Jimmy Buffet adage is true.  Sometimes it really is “Nobody’s fault” and if you engage in enough passing the buck you can get away with anything if you’re a police officer.  I think common sense is being bypassed here.  Clearly if it were you or me being charged with a death there would be a little thing like “assuming responsibility for what you did”.   That marine who shot those six Baton Rouge police officers was from Kansas City.  We don’t have any hard facts as to the motive.  All we know is once again the man is Black.  But I didn’t assume that before I knew for sure.  After all why couldn’t a conscientious white man decide “He was the one who needed to purge society”?  

Last night I dreamed that I went to a Sunday school class at three in the afternoon on Sunday and Patty Hayes was in this class.  At one point she and I were hanging drapes that were there as kind of a patrician to the room.  I kept making notes for things I intended to bring up in class but I kept moving them around and forgetting where I put them.  Bill took a shower before I did in the morning.  He gave me a pack of cigarettes with three short butts in it.  I got my medication from Ida.  I had Stephanie on before breakfast and she is on now.  Ron gave me a white rollie before breakfast.  Now I owe him two.  We had plain Cheerios for breakfast followed by a fried egg, toast, butter and jelly.  I got a cup of black coffee filled to the brim from Rico and then he gave me a “regular” with cream and sugar.  Extras are good.  Now it’s eight thirty and there are about six hours to go before I get paid.   This is Roger Ailes for Motel Fox and we’ll leave the right wing on for you.  Nine investigations have cleared Hillary Clinton so to bring up this death and sadness at the convention is over the top.  There was no vision for the future in this convention.  They were rooted in the past.  There was no “uplift”.  

Newt Gingrich made his last ditch effort to be chosen as Vice President by saying that people who so much as look at Islamic internet sites or those who run these sites oughta be charged with a Felony.  It's not against the law to use the word "ISIS" in an internet site.  When you talk about "extreme vetting" of people coming here from the Mideast- - I'm wondering whether they waterboard them.  But now Newt is giving his full endorsement of Mike Pence.  "We only need one pirate on the ticket".  It's a strange thing that the head of the ticket would be considered a "Pirate".    Maybe he should start saying "Arrrhrr".  

[Sunday] night they did a rerun of that “Eye on LA” segment about that Northern Buffalo indoor water park where they wanted kind of a northwest mountain cabin theme, and the Tweens and Teens have this magic wond they use to play games and open treasure troves.  I was out smoking.  America’s Funniest Home Videos wasn’t on.  They had Family Feud.  I think a Sunday evening is too valuable a time slot for “game night”.   I watched the Trump and Pence interview on Sixty Minutes with Dianne Sawyer or whoever.  Trump dominated Pence almost “giving him permission to speak” like a husband dominating a wife and speaking for her.  I learned amazingly nothing else.  I went to the med line which was quite short from Tom.  Then Sixty Minutes had a thing on Southern California wildlife including mountain lions, coyotes and bears- - and how they need to build a bridge over the Venture Freeway.  Because right now males are having sex with their own offspring- - and sometimes they even kill their mates.  Before seven I went to Glen’s room for instant coffee for three cigarettes. 

A Roster of the Mike Pence Political Horrors

If Democrats want to scare themselves silly into voting for Hillary in November, just circulate this list.  It's an almost quintesential encapsulation of Neo Conservative Values.  Hillary and Pence do have one thing in common though.  They were both duped by the "Arab Spring" and the Muslim Brotherhood.  

While in Congress, Pence belonged to the Tea Party Caucus.^[42]

During Pence's twelve years in the House, he introduced 90 bills and resolutions; none became law.^[43]

Abortion and Planned Parenthood[edit]

Pence began seeking to defund Planned Parenthood in 2007,^[44] by introducing legislation aimed at preventing any organization that provides abortion services from receiving Title X funding.^[45]

Birthright citizenship[edit]

In 2009, Pence opposed birthright citizenship (the legal principle set forth by the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that all persons born on U.S. soil are citizens). He co-sponsored a bill that would have limited citizenship to children born to at least one parent who is a citizen, immigrants living permanently in the U.S. or non-citizens performing active service in the U.S. Armed Forces.^[46]

Economy[edit]

Pence was a co-sponsor of H.J.Res.73, a 2011 spending limit amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This amendment would limit federal spending to "the average annual revenue collected in the three prior years, adjusted in proportion to changes in population and inflation."^[47] In regards to adopting the gold standard, Pence stated in 2011, "the time has come to have a debate over gold and the proper role it should play in our nation’s monetary affairs".^[48]

He has been a proponent of a flat federal tax rate, and opposed the TARP bank bailout of 2008.^[49]

Education[edit]

Pence voted against the No Child Left Behind Act.^[50]

Earmarks[edit]

Then-U.S. Representative Pence (third from left) standing behind then-Governor Mitch Daniels at a press conference in Martinsville, Indiana

Pence was a supporter of earmark reform. He voted against the $139.7 billion transportation-treasury spending bill in June 2006, and in favor of a series of amendments proposed that same month by Jeff Flake that would strip other members' earmarks from the federal budget.^[51] On occasion, however, Pence secured earmarks for projects in his district.^[51]

Immigration[edit]

In June 2006, Pence unveiled an immigration plan (which he described as "No Amnesty Immigration reform") that would include increased border security, followed by strict enforcement of laws against hiring illegal aliens, and a Guest worker program. This guest worker program requires potential participants to apply from their home country to government-approved job placement agencies that match workers with employers who cannot find Americans for the job.^[52] The plan received support from conservatives such as Dick Armey,^[53] but attracted criticism from other conservatives such as Phyllis Schlafly, Richard A. Viguerie, and Pat Buchanan, who viewed Pence as lending "his conservative prestige to a form of liberal amnesty."^[54][55]

In 2010, Pence voted against the DREAM Act, which would grant the undocumented children of illegal immigrants conditional non-immigrant status if they met certain requirements.^[56] In 2010, Pence stated that Arizona S.B. 1070, which at the time of passage in 2010 was the US's broadest and strictest anti-illegal immigration legislation, was "a good faith to try and restore order to their communities".^[57]

Pence was rated 100% and 92% by the anti-immigration groups FAIR and USBC respectively during his tenure in Congress.^[58][59]

Foreign policy[edit]

Pence supported the Iraq War Resolution, which authorized military action against Iraq.^[60]

During the Iraq War, Pence opposed setting a public withdrawal date from Iraq. During an April 2007 visit to Baghdad, Pence and John McCain visited Shorja market, the site of a deadly attack in February 2007, that claimed the lives of 61 people. Pence and McCain described the visit as evidence that the security situation in Iraqi markets has improved.^[61]The visit to the market took place under large security including helicopters overhead, and the New York Timesreported that the visit gave a false indication of how secure the area was due to the extremely heavy security forces protecting McCain.^[62]

Pence chaired the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and was a prominent supporter of George W. Bush's Iraq War troop surge of 2007. At the time, Pence stated that "the surge is working" and defended the initial decision to invade in 2003.^[60]

Pence has opposed closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and trying the suspected terrorists in the U.S.^[63]Pence believes that "the Obama administration must overturn this wrongheaded decision".^[63] As an alternative, Pence has said that the "enemy combatants" should be tried in a military tribunal.^[63]

Pence has stated his support of Israel and its right to attack facilities in Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons, has defended the actions of Israel in its use of deadly force in enforcing the blockade of Gaza, and has referred to Israel as "America's most cherished ally".^[64] He visited Israel in 2014 to express his support, and in 2016 signed into law a bill which would ban Indiana from having any commercial dealings with a company that boycotts Israel.^[65]

Two weeks prior to the NATO intervention in Libya, Pence thanked the Obama administration and Secretary of State Clinton for their efforts to isolate the Gaddafi regime.^[66][67][68] Pence expressed support for "a no-fly zone" and stated that "Qadhafi must go".^[66][67][68]

Healthcare[edit]

Pence opposed the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Medicare Part D).^[69]

Science[edit]

Climate change[edit]

In 2001, Pence wrote "Global warming is a myth,"^[70] saying, incorrectly, that "the earth is actually cooler today than it was about 50 years ago".^[71] In 2009 he told Chris Matthews that there was a "growing skepticism in the scientific community about global warming."^[72][73]

Embryonic stem cell research[edit]

In 2009, Pence opposed President Obama's executive order eliminating restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research. Pence stated, "I believe it is morally wrong to create human life to destroy it for research... I believe it is morally wrong to take the tax dollars of millions of pro-life Americans".^[74][75] He asserted that "scientific breakthroughs have rendered embryonic stem-cell research obsolete".^[74][75]

Theory of evolution[edit]

When asked if he believes in evolution, Pence answered "I believe with all my heart that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that’s in them. How he did that I’ll ask him about some day."^[76][75]

Tobacco[edit]

In 2001, Pence wrote an op-ed arguing against additional government regulation of tobacco and the corresponding increase in the size of government and encroachment on private lives. He stated that “despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn't kill.”^[77][78] Pence asserted, "2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer," while acknowledging that "smoking isn't good for you" and people who smoke should quit.^[77][78]

In 2009, Pence voted against the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which allows the FDA toregulate tobacco products.^[79]

Trade deals[edit]

Pence "has been a longtime, aggressive advocate of trade deals" between the U.S. and foreign countries.^[80] Pence is a supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),^[80] and during his tenure in the House, he voted for every free-trade agreement that came before him.^[81] Pence voted in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA); in favor of keeping the U.S. in the World Trade Organization; and in favor of permanent normal trade relations with China.^[81] Pence also supported bilateral free-trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea,Panama, Peru, Oman, Chile and Singapore.^[81] Pence's strong stance in favor of free trade sharply differs from the stance of his running mate Trump, who has condemned globalization and the liberalization of trade.^[80][81]

Views on homosexuality[edit]

In 2000, Pence stated "Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual's [sic] as a discreet [sic] and insular minority entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities."^[82] He called for "an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus [sic]" and instead advocated for resources to be directed toward Conversion therapy programs.^[83][84][85]

Pence has said that homosexuals should not serve in the military, saying, "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service because the presence of homosexuals in the ranks weakens unit cohesion" and in 2010 stated that repealingDon't ask, don't tell would "have an impact on unit cohesion."^[86] Pence opposed the 2009 Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, saying that Barack Obama wanted to "advance a radical social agenda"^[87] and said that pastors "could be charged or be subject to intimidation for simply expressing a Biblical worldview on the issue of homosexual behavior."^[88]

Pence opposes both same-sex marriage and civil unions.^[89] While in the House, he said that "societal collapse was always brought about following an advent of the deterioration of marriage and family".^[90] He has advocated a constitutional same-sex marriage ban but did not champion such a proposed ban for his first year as governor.^[91]