The Parable of the River of Freedom

by Nomad

I found this video and thought you might find it interesting. It's narrated by Orson Welles and, according to what I could learn dates back to 1971.
Like all classic parable, it seems as if it were written for our times.

The backstory is provided by Joseph Cavella, a writer for the film.

For several years, Bosustow Productions had asked Orson Welles, then living in Paris, to narrate one of their films. He never responded. When I finished the Freedom River script, we sent it to him together with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a sizable check and crossed our fingers. He was either desperate for money or (I would rather believe) something in it touched him because two weeks later we got the reel back with the narration word for word and we were on our way.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

ACA Repeal and How Trump Voters in Kentucky Threw Themselves Under the GOP Bus

by Nomad

The general interest news site, Vox, went to Whitley County, Kentucky to ask the residents there what they thought of Obamacare.
They were not at all happy.
So it's no surprise that these people overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. Throughout the campaign, the billionaire candidate made no secret of his vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What is a surprise is that these Trump voters there are exactly the demographic that benefits the most from Obama's signature healthcare plan. Logically, they ought to be shooting off fireworks for Obamacare. They have the most to lose if Trump keeps his campaign promise about the repeal.

Vox attempts to learn what gives. How and why could voters vote against their own best interests on something as serious as health insurance?
The answers might surprise you.The video's worth watching.

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Is Trump Demolishing the Federal Government to Please Corporate America?

by Nomad

President Trump may call it downsizing but a look at just some of the programs and agencies that face cuts (or outright dismantling) makes one wonder what will be spared.

The Heritage Foundation Budget

Trump transition staffers say they've earmarked ways to reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years and cutting jobs is a big part of the plan, The Hill reported. The cutback blueprint report was hand-delivered last year from the powerful conservative think tank and advocacy group the Heritage Foundation.Trump's budget cuts closely mirror a document (titled “Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017”)

The article in The Hill cited unnamed sources from inside President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. According to that report, two Trump transition staffers are charged with presenting the possible cuts to the White House Budget Office. The Hill said.

 Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the former executive director of the RSC, and John Gray, who previously worked for Pence, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) when Ryan headed the House Budget Committee.

Both Vought and Gray worked for the Heritage Foundation, once the intellectual backbone and now the bane of the GOP. Right Wing Watch has quite an archive on the Heritage Foundation. Weeks after the election, the watchdog group reported on a new initiative designed to "roll back the power of the federal government’s regulatory agencies." 

Now with former Heritage rank and file in charged of the budget, the rolling back has presidential approval.   

Here are Five Orwellian Quotes for Trump's "Post-Truth" Presidency

by Nomad

When tiny Donnie Trump, future President of the United States, was a two-year toddler, a world-famous author named George Orwell passed away of tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Orwell's best-known book, "Nineteen-Eighty-Four" painted a grim dystopian image of the future, in which lies and truth were reversible and the definitions of both were under the absolute control of an autocratic state.

The slogans of the ruling party in the novel are all about controlling the message and allowing no dissent, even to the degree of stating something as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4 or the size of a crowd.
Allies could suddenly become enemies and long-vilified enemies could in mid-sentence become welcome allies. The "facts" could be anything that suited the leaders and this required citizens to hold both truth and lies - the most transparent- are having equal value. (Thank God, this was just fiction.

Terms found in the novel such as "Big Brother", "doublethink" and "newspeak" have become part of our political language.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 65 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, giving George Orwell a unique place in world literature.

Practically ever since that book was written, Orwell's insight into the ways a government can manipulate the truth has served as an alarm against an increasingly totalitarian world.

An Interesting Story from Trump's Past Should Serve as a Warning to the CIA

by Nomad

In my pursuit of something new, I often go back to something old. In this case, to May 1991. I found an article written by the late Christopher Byron, a veteran financial writer of Wall Street and all of the 1990s shenanigans that went on. In this piece published in New York Magazine (May 1991), Trump plays only a cameo appearance.

The piece is, in fact, about a New York investigative agency, Kroll Associates. Based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City the firm had specialized in digging up dirt in the world of finance.

In the 1980s, corporations would consult Kroll regarding in investors, suitors and takeover targets. "with special attention to any perceived connections to disreputable organizations, suspicious business practices, personality and integrity issues, or any kind of corporate malfeasance " The CIA of Wall Street, you could say.

Its founder, Jules Kroll, recalled a short tale of his encounter with businessman Donald Trump. 

Byron wrote:

Donald Trump.. told me that he had once used Kroll for "a certain matter" and that the investigator's work had been "superb."

"You can quote me on that," said Trump.

A week or so later, however, Kroll himself supplied an unexpected reason for Trump's thumbs-up endorsement. According to Jules, Trump hired Kroll Associates four or five years ago to investigate whether Atlantic City's Plaza casino which Trump was negotiating to buy, had become "mobbed up."

"It was a tough assignment," said Kroll, shaking his head. "One of the people we interviewed was murdered three days after we spoke to him."