Monday, February 13, 2017

'Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?'
Or . . . where is Delta Tau Chi when you really need it?


White House policy director Stephen Miller doesn't like Deltas, either.
In liberal Santa Monica, students in the city's largest high school tended to hold progressive ideas, to be environmentally conscious and open minded.

But Miller went the other way. He quickly stood out as a contentious and provocative student whose conservative and ultra-nationalist politics put him continuously at odds with teachers, administrators and students.

Univision Noticias spoke with several classmates who said Miller had few friends, none of them non-white. They said he used to make fun of the children of Latino and Asian immigrants who did not speak English well.

Early on, Miller began to write opinion columns in conservative blogs, the local press and the high school's own newspaper, The Samohi. He also contributed at times to the national radio show of Larry Elder, a conservative African American, and once invited him to speak at the school.

Displaying his hostility toward minorities, Miller complained to school administrators about announcements in Spanish and festivals that celebrated diversity.

In his third year at the school, the 16-year-old Miller wrote a letter to The Lookout, a local publication, about his negative impression of Hispanic students and the use of Spanish in the United States.

“When I entered Santa Monica High School in ninth grade, I noticed a number of students lacked basic English skills. There are usually very few, if any, Hispanic students in my honors classes, despite the large number of Hispanic students that attend our school,” Miller wrote.

“Even so, pursuant to district policy, all announcements are written in both Spanish and English. By providing a crutch now, we are preventing Spanish speakers from standing on their own,” he added. “As politically correct as this may be, it demeans the immigrant population as incompetent, and makes a mockery of the American ideal of personal accomplishment."

In that article, Miller also complained about his school's celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the existence of a gay club and a visit by a Muslim leader.

School Board member Oscar de la Torre said he had numerous verbal clashes with Miller, and recalled that Miller turned up one day for a meeting of a committee created to help Hispanic and African American students. But Miller was not there to help, de la Torre told Univision Noticias.

“He wanted to sabotage us,” de la Torre said. “He confronted everyone, denying that racism existed. He said that was a thing of the past.”

Univision Noticias requested an interview with Miller through several White House press officials, but received no reply. Subsequently, the White House rejected the veracity of this article and requested a rectification. But Univision has verified the credibility of the sources used in addition to Miller's own writings. Univision again requested an interview with Miller to express his point of view, but did not receive a response.

Miller wrote about those meetings years later, during his time at Duke University. “I was quickly labeled a racist, and after the session de la Torre became combative. He, like countless others during my time at Santa Monica High, tried to convince me that blacks and Hispanics were all victims of inescapable discrimination, deeply ingrained in the white ruling class and all public institutions,” he wrote.

Natalie Flores, another student who witnessed Miller's evolution from middle to high school, said he displayed “an intense hatred toward people of color, especially toward Latinos.” She and other students interviewed for this report recalled that Miller became angry whenever he heard students speaking Spanish in the hallways.

“I think his big problem was the Latinos. He thought they lived off welfare,” said Flores, now enrolled at the Teachers College at Columbia University.
REALLY, this guy is the honest-to-goodness second coming of Doug Niedermeyer. Just look.


Saturday, February 11, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: A musical sanitorium


We can take only so much of this crap at one time.

So we take a rest. We restore ourselves and our souls.


3 Chords & the Truth does this with music, because everything is better with music. And the music on this restorative episode of the Big Show is especially good -- both in and of itself . . . and for your soul.

Really . . . we live in interesting times, in the Chinese-curse sense of interesting times. We have to take care of ourselves.

Consider this edition of the podcast just that.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Wednesday, February 08, 2017

South Louisiana personality test

 
Coffee.

The way God intended it to be made and consumed.

☐   Yes
(Perfectly normal)

 
☐   No
(It's bad, bad)

Friday, February 03, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The revolution starts now


Uncle Sam wants you . . . to live as an American.

Not a Russian.

Not an angry German.

Not a Serb.

Not a Klansman.

Not an "alt" anything.

THE ALT STOPS HERE on 3 Chords & the Truth. The revolution starts now.

Welcome to the Zeitgeist Edition of the Big Show. There will be lots of good music to listen to -- and to chew on -- this week. Believe me.

Just remember one simple thing: Be more American. Be less a**hole.

That's about it.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there.  Aloha.



Thursday, February 02, 2017

Driving angry


It probably won't be long now before Steve Bannon and his furry little friend Donald Trump drive the United States over the edge and way down, down, down into the quarry.

We might be OK.

BOOM!

Well, probably not now.

That's what we get for electing a president -- take your pick, Bannon or Trump -- who drives angry.

Just Wednesday, word came of two road-rage incidents with foreign leaders. In a Friday phone call, Trump apparently threatened President Enrique Pena Nieto with a U.S. invasion if Mexico's military couldn't take care of that country's "bad hombres."

I am not making this up.

"You have a bunch of bad hombres down there," the American commander in chief told his Mexican counterpart, according to a partial transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press. "You aren't doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn't, so I just might send them down to take care of it."

If Trump was offering assistance, that's a mighty strange way to put it.
A person with access to the official transcript of the phone call provided only that portion of the conversation to The Associated Press. The person gave it on condition of anonymity because the administration did not make the details of the call public.

The Mexican website Aristegui Noticias on Tuesday published a similar account of the phone call, based on the reporting of journalist Dolia Estevez. The report described Trump as humiliating Pena Nieto in a confrontational conversation.

Mexico's foreign relations department said the report was "based on absolute falsehoods."

Americans may recognize Trump's signature bombast in the comments, but the remarks may carry more weight in Mexico.
Political analyst and former presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar notes Pena Nieto had enjoyed an apparent spike in his low approval levels, as Mexicans rallied around him for publicly challenging Trump in the border wall dispute.
The latest remarks could undercut that, if Pena Nieto is viewed as "weak," he said.

Trump has used the phrase "bad hombres" before. In an October presidential debate, he vowed to get rid the U.S. of "drug lords" and "bad people."

"We have some bad hombres here, and we're going to get them out," he said. The phrase ricocheted on social media with Trump opponents saying he was denigrating immigrants.

THE NEXT DAY, it was Australia's prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who got Trumped. Or Bannoned. Does it really even matter? Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening me.

The Washington Post, which hasn't seen this much crazy since Watergate, has the story:

It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.

Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refu­gee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.

At one point, Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladi­mir Putin — and that “this was the worst call by far.”

Trump’s behavior suggests that he is capable of subjecting world leaders, including close allies, to a version of the vitriol he frequently employs against political adversaries and news organizations in speeches and on Twitter.

“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center.

Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admission of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”

Trump returned to the topic late Wednesday night, writing in a message on Twitter: “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!”

THE UNITED STATES should have bought life insurance from Ned Ryerson when it had the chance. Maybe Canada could have gotten a little something from Mutant of Omaha ("When the world's in ashes, we'll have you covered.").

But we didn't, and Canada won't. And as we become Krispy Kritters in the flaming wreckage of Pickup One at the bottom of a quarry, there'll be no do-over for voters who figured that what Washington really needed was to be blowed up good -- real good.

The alarm clock won't flip from 5:59 to 6:00, and it won't be morning in America once again. We're a midnight kind of country now.

Monday, January 30, 2017

How low can you go? Not sure Trump has a floor

 
A Facebook friend wanted to know why I seemingly only post political stuff now.


In this age of Trump, to even ask the question says nothing good about oneself. Still, I'll answer the question by posting this latest outrage from the malignant butt sore residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
On Saturday, a 5-year-old boy whose mother is Iranian was reportedly detained for hours by himself at Washington Dulles International Airport as President Donald Trump’s immigration order was enforced.

Asked on Monday whether Trump’s order — which critics have called a “Muslim ban” — should apply to 5-year-old children, White House press secretary Sean Spicer gave a clear answer: yes.

“That’s why we slow [the process] down a little,” Spicer said at the daily press briefing. “To make sure that if they are a 5-year-old, that maybe they’re with their parents and they don’t pose a threat. But to assume that just because of someone’s age or gender or whatever that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.”

The argument, essentially, is that basically anyone from the restricted Muslim-majority countries can do dangerous things, so we should carefully vet and potentially ban even young children from entering the US. It shows the breadth of Trump’s order: It truly is meant to affect any traveler from the seven countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, or Yemen) on the order’s list.
WHY DO I post so much political stuff now? Because when you have an administration that can send its flack out to tell the American press THIS with a straight face, what you have is an administration that is systematically destroying the very idea of America.

This is a cancer upon the DNA of this country. This is quite literally anti-American. This is demonstrably a grave attack on basic human rights. This is without question -- veritably, blatantly, plain as opening your Bible and beginning to read -- anti-Christian and blasphemy against Almighty God, inviting divine judgment against this land.

One could credibly argue that, indeed, Donald Trump IS divine judgment against this land.

This is naked evil, and to acquiesce is to risk eternal damnation.

Would you like me to be more clear than this?


OK. Resist.

Friday, January 27, 2017

The alternative facts of (pro-) life


Some folks find it "very, very encouraging" that the Trump Administration "has given the pro-life movement more support at the March For Life than any other administration in history."

I guess you could fairly say that if the "alternative" definition of "more support . . . than any other administration in history" happens to be "blowing smoke up willful dupes' asses at a rate 'unpresidented' in modern political history."

No, I am not happy at all that the Trump Administration is so openly “supportive” of the March for Life . . . or of the pro-life movement, such as it is today.

And when I speak of the “pro-life movement,” what I mean is the old, institutional and political primarily pro-birth movement, which has shown precious little interest in continuing its support of human life once the child emerges from the womb. That “pro-life” movement has sullied itself by becoming a de facto arm of the Republican Party and spending too much of its time and resources in support of politicians who have done precious little to actually stop abortion in this country.

What those lawmakers have done, however, is push manifestly anti-life positions like repeated cuts to social services, as well as reductions to welfare and food stamps. The old “pro-life” movement has sold its soul to a party that backs the death penalty and gave us “enhanced interrogation” — the “alternate fact” designation for torture, which happens to run just as afoul of the Geneva Conventions and U.S. criminal law as it does Christian teaching — and an insanely foolhardy, unjust war in Iraq.

The old “pro-life” movement has sold its soul to Donald J. Trump, who got elected in no small part by scapegoating Muslims and Mexicans, demonizing the American press and otherwise summoning the blackest instincts of the human psyche and spirit.


IT HAS SOLD its soul to the man who vows to give us The Wallthe big, beautiful wall on the Mexican border — which now, we learn, is to be built at American-taxpayer expense and will be defeated as easily as digging a tunnel or hopping on an airplane and overstaying one’s tourist visa.
It has sold its soul to the president who intends to publish a list of crimes committed by immigrants in “sanctuary cities,” a move taken directly from the Nazi playbook in Germany.  Look up The Criminal Jew on Google.

It has sold its soul to — endorsed and campaigned for — the candidate who now, as president of the United States, is ending the refugee-resettlement program and banning all Muslim immigration from countries “linked to terrorism.” Thumb through your Bible (Old Testament and New) to see what the deity of our “Christian nation” has to say about that.

And it has sold its soul to a candidate who campaigned through the Big Lie and now is governing by the Big Lie, which now has been rechristened as “alternative facts.” Joseph Goebbels would be so proud — the March for Life organizers invited Kellyanne Conway, who invented the term “alternative facts” to alternative-fact marchers to death today.
 
“Pro-lifers” today are hailing their impending political victories at the hands of our new, all-GOP political order. If any victories are ever realized here, which I rather doubt, I fear they will be wholly Pyrrhic ones, because when this unstable, budding fascist of a president is done bringing this country to ruin, tyranny or both, “God’s name will be reviled among the Gentiles” because of the sycophancy of these “Good Christian People,” as a liberal, gay high-school classmate derisively refers to right-of-hedonist followers of Jesus Christ.
And those of us Christians who fought this present darkness are going to get it just as good and hard as those who sold out their faith and their cause to a short-fingered vulgarian.

Saturday, January 21, 2017

The name of God is reviled among the Gentiles


It's a clear biblical precept, and not a particularly complicated one, that when you count yourself as one of God's own yet persist in evil, there will be repercussions in this world, and then the next.

America's Finest Christians (TM) are quick to throw out Bible verses for their own ends, yet their prooftexting of Holy Scripture never seems to be directed at their own misdeeds.

In the more than a year that we had to learn exactly what kind of a man President Donald Trump is, and be told of the manifest evil he himself promised to commit as leader of the Free World, many American Christians found all manner of justifications to ignore God's holy word and turn this amoral vulgarian into a modern-day, flesh-and-blood Golden Calf (more like a golden ass, alas).

Then they proclaimed it God's will and forbade all dissent as un-American, un-Christian or both.

Again, this is not rocket science.
All who sin outside the law will also perish without reference to it, and all who sin under the law will be judged in accordance with it. For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified.

For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s hidden works through Christ Jesus.

Now if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast of God and know his will and are able to discern what is important since you are instructed from the law, and if you are confident that you are a guide for the blind and a light for those in darkness, that you are a trainer of the foolish and teacher of the simple, because in the law you have the formulation of knowledge and truth — then you who teach another, are you failing to teach yourself?

You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who forbid adultery, do you commit adultery? You who detest idols, do you rob temples? You who boast of the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "Because of you the name of God is reviled among the Gentiles."


-- Romans 2:12-24
THE EXTENT to which Trump manages to do what he promised -- building "the beautiful wall" on the Mexican border, deporting the undocumented en masse, using America's military as an instrument of vengeance or irrational pique, making torture into government policy, turning away the persecuted and suffering and targeting immigrants on the basis of their religion -- he will be doing evil in the name of all Americans.

By extension, those who enabled him and supported his wickedness will be just as guilty as the president. And they will cloak their iniquity with the mantle of God's righteousness.

That sort of blasphemy likely would be a bridge too far even for the areligious Trump.

At last, when the string has played out and our dysfunctional, unstable commander in chief has visited ruin upon our land, God will be blasphemed among those who know Him not -- an ever growing percentage of the U.S. population. And those who fought Trump's lies and misdeeds, for love of God and the God's honest truth, will suffer the coming wrath
-- for His slandered name's sake -- right along with those who gave themselves over to the spirit of blasphemy.

Jesus wept. Satan laughed.

3 Chords & the Truth: Going to our happy place


MESSAGE AUTHENTICATOR: HATEFULNESS/HATEFULNESS

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ACTION NOTIFICATION (EAN) DIRECTED BY THE MIGHTY FAVOG. NORMAL BROADCASTING WILL CEASE IMMEDIATELY. ALL STATIONS WILL BROADCAST 3 CHORDS & THE TRUTH MESSAGE ONE PRECEDED BY THE ATTENTION SIGNAL, PER REGULATIONS. ONLY STATIONS HOLDING GOOD MUSIC MAY STAY ON AIR IN ACCORD WITH THEIR STATE CONELRAD PLAN.
 
LISTENERS ARE INSTRUCTED TO GO TO THEIR "HAPPY PLACE" SHELTERS IMMEDIATELY AND KEEP ELECTRONIC DEVICES TUNED TO THIS PODCAST.
THIS IS 3 CHORDS & THE TRUTH. STAY TUNED TO THE BIG SHOW UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

BROADCAST 3C&T MESSAGE ONE. BE THERE. ALOHA.
 
THAT KINDA SOUNDED TOO FINAL, DIDN'T IT? 
MESSAGE AUTHENTICATOR: HATEFULNESS/HATEFULNESS

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Iowa uber alles


Iowa's crackpot congressman, Steve King, always has marched to the beat of a right-wing drummer.

He now apparently is goosestepping to an Anschluss beat, hobnobbing with a far-right leader of a political party founded by ex-Nazis in old Österreich. The candidate of the ironically named Freedom Party lost Austria's presidential runoff, but apparently its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, still ist Nummer Eins in the heart of the Hawkeye State's korncob kommandant.

Strache, you see, will be attending the inauguration of Donald Trump as the guest of King. Let that sink in for a moment.
Rep. Steve King
Various media had reported that Hofer and Strache had been invited by Washington's conservative republican deputy, Steve King. King, who had already supported Trump in the election campaign, visited Vienna last October, where he met the then-Presidential candidate, Hofer. Now the confirmation.
Facebook knows about Strache:
"I was invited to Washington this week. As usual, I am accompanied by a Freedom Delegation on this trip.
On the margins of the US presidential election, a series of talks with interesting US political representatives is on our tight schedule."
(Translation by Google)
A STORY on an English-language Austrian news site is here.

Of course, this isn't the 4th District representative's first flirtation with the outrageous.

In 2010, King said he could "empathize" with a domestic terrorist who flew his small plane into an Internal Revenue Service field office in Austin, Texas, killing himself as well as an IRS manager and injuring 13 others.

That same year, during the final House battle to enact Obamacare, The New York Times quoted him as saying this:

“Let’s beat the other side to a pulp!” Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa, shouted to the last stand of Tea Partiers on Sunday night. “Let’s chase them down! There’s going to be a reckoning.”
In 2016, King attracted attention when a television report showed a small Confederate flag on his desk in Washington. Earlier, he had defended the Rebel flag as a "symbol" of Southern pride and decried efforts to ban the banner from official display:
“A huge price has been paid. It’s been paid primarily by Caucasian Christians. There are many who stepped up because they profoundly believed they needed to put an end to slavery,” said King. “This country has put this behind us.”
And less than a week later, on TV at the Republican National Convention, der Kongressabgeordnete went all master race on an MSNBC panel when someone mentioned the last gasp of "old white people" in the GOP.
This 'old white people' business does get a little tired, Charlie," King said. "I'd ask you to go back through history and figure out, where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you're talking about, where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?"

"Than white people?" Hayes asked, clearly amazed.

"Than, than Western civilization itself," King replied. "It's rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That's all of Western civilization."

The other panelists objected, with Hayes trying to keep the peace. Panelist April Ryan, who is black, asked, "What about Asia? What about Africa?"

"We're not going to argue the history of Western civilization," Hayes said. "Let me note for the record that if you're looking at the ledger of Western civilization, for every flourishing democracy, you have Hitler and Stalin as well."
WHEN IT comes to Steve King, I haven't even scratched the surface of the lowlights here. Believe me.

And now this.

Let me summarize "this": A congressman who can do nothing outrageous enough to alienate his constituents in Bumf***, Iowa, happens to be an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump, who could do nothing outrageous enough not to become the 45th president of the United States.

Then, the outrageous right-wing congressman invites an outrageous right-wing politico of a Nazi-birthed Austrian party (who late last year signed a cooperation pact with Vladimir Putin's United Russia party) to the swearing in of Trump, who has his own thing going with the Russians, whose geopolitical aim is to blow the Western alliance to hell and achieve complete Eurasian dominance.

No, nothing to see here. Move along to the showers for delousing.


IT WOULD SEEM to this schlub sitting at his computer in Omaha, by God, Nebraska, that the problem isn't that Steve King and Donald Trump are going to turn America fascist. It seems to me instead that the reason we have public disgraces like Steve King and Donald Trump at the forefront of American public life is because large swaths of our land already have gone fascist.

Folks hereabouts would deny that till the cows come home, and they'd probably want to sock me "in the goddamn face" for saying it. Of course, the other plausible explanation is that an electoral majority in Iowa's 4th and a winning electoral-college coalition nationally elected these two little Hitlers because they were too effing stupid and racist to manage otherwise.

If I were an King voter in western Iowa or a Trump enthusiast nationwide, I'd just cop to fascist.

For the rest of us, the Resistance begins Friday.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

In the original German


Coming, no doubt, to the Trump inaugural gala.

Please, God, let them be booked to play this at the Trump inaugural gala.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: The inauguration edition


Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor Russian jammers and hackers stays this program from the musical completion of its appointed time slot.

And the Big Show has a special inauguration edition for you this week -- a song-filled celebration of the 45th and last president of these formerly United States. It wasn't easy bringing the music to you.

Malevolent forces tried to make that not occur.

They failed.

OUR NEW administration will be commemorated during this momentous week. Good and hard.

I think you'll enjoy the spectacle.

I think others . . . not so much.

So sit back and relax with a stiff drink for the next 95 minutes, and let the 3 Chords & the Truth music mix surround you like a wall. A big, beautiful wall. The best wall . . . of sound.

Who knows who'll pay for it? Who cares? It won't be you, that's the important thing.

SEE MY beautiful sentences here? They're the best sentences, epic sentences. Believe me, they're great. Almost as great as my music this week. So listen up, and listen good . . . to the Big Show.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.


Friday, January 13, 2017

'I, for one, welcome our new Kremlin overlords'


Donald Trump’s national security adviser has been in regular contact with Russia’s ambassador to the US, it emerged on Friday, as the controversy around Trump’s ties to Russia showed no signs of abating. 
The White House is aware of phone calls between retired lieutenant-general Michael Flynn and ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a senior US official told the Associated Press. 
It is not clear how the current administration learned of the contacts, although the AP noted that US monitoring of Russian officials’ communication within America is known to be common. 
The disclosure came after a week dominated by the release of a dossier, prepared by a former British intelligence officer, alleging that Russia collected compromising information about Trump and that there had been secret communications between them. The president-elect fired off a fresh round of tweets about the Russian connection that continues to overshadow the buildup to his inauguration a week from now. 
Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak reportedly included several calls on 29 December, the day on which Barack Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials, as well as other measures in retaliation for Russian interference in the election. The official said Flynn and Kislyak have also been in contact at other times, according to the AP. 
Sean Spicer, spokesman for the Trump transition, said Flynn and Kislyak spoke on the phone around the time of the sanctions announcement, although he claimed the conversation happened a day earlier, on 28 December. 
“The call centred around the logistics of setting up a call with the president of Russia and the president-elect after he was sworn in, and they exchanged logistical information on how to initiate and schedule that call,” Spicer told reporters on Friday. “That was it, plain and simple.” 
The call followed text message exchanges initiated by Flynn on Christmas Day, in which he wished the ambassador a merry Christmas and said he looked forward to “touching base with you and working with you”, Spicer added. 
Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak, who has served as Russia’s ambassador since 2008, were first reported by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. “What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the US sanctions?” he wrote.
-- The Guardian


Wednesday, January 11, 2017

It's not that he's a Cheeto horndog . . .

  . . . it's that he's a f***ing moron.

When in Russia, you have only one job. Don't grab anybody's pu**y.

And Donald Trump couldn't do it. Allegedly. According to a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence operative who specialized in Russian affairs. From information provided by Russian sources.

Americans, including the media, haven't nailed down the information yet, but U.S. intelligence takes it seriously enough to brief the president -- and the president-elect -- on it.

ACCORDING to the man who will lead this country and literally hold your life in his pu**y-grabbing mitts (cough, nuclear codes, cough), the media reports on this are "FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!" But in your heart, you know it's probably true, right?

Because that's who Donald Trump really is, right?

Donald Trump, it seems to me, is something else, too -- the purest expression today of American popular culture and its core values. He was a "reality-TV" star, a best-selling "author," the subject of constant attention, fascination and emulation.


Then we elected him president because he's Donald F***ing Trump, who Tells It Like It Is and will Make America Great Again.

The only thing Trump will make America is Amerika.

In doing so, he and our new Russian overlords will have hung us with out own immoral, dysfunctional rope.

Friday, January 06, 2017

3 Chords & the Truth: Casting our fate


The Big Show is back, and we're casting our fate to the wind.

That's not nothing -- the wind has been pretty damned ill lately. And so has your Mighty Favog.

I call it the Crud, and it seems everybody around Omaha, by God, Nebraska has had it this winter. It would seem that I may have gotten it worse than most -- about a month of varying degrees of sickness, 10 days of antibiotics and the worst laryngitis I've ever encountered.


Even now, my voice probably is only 80 percent, but that's good enough, I reckon, for 3 Chords & the Truth to be back on the Internets. So here it is.

Thank God.

I do believe we're picking up where we left off in the good -- and eclectic -- music department. On the other hand, the proof is in the listening, and the Big Show is ripe for listening after all this time away from the microphone.

Here's hoping that you're as eager to see what 3 Chords & the Truth is up to in the new year as I was eager to be up to something podcast-y in 2017.

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.