Trump Picks A Fellow Traveller: Matt Whitaker

The NYT reports the following:

Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, served on the advisory board of a Florida company that a federal judge shut down last year and fined nearly $26 million after the government accused it of scamming customers.

The company, World Patent Marketing, “bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars” by promising inventors lucrative patent agreements, according to a complaint filed in Florida by the Federal Trade Commission.

Court documents show that when frustrated consumers tried to get their money back, Scott J. Cooper, the company’s president and founder, used Mr. Whitaker to threaten them as a former federal prosecutor. Mr. Cooper’s company paid Mr. Whitaker nearly $10,000 before it closed.

Mr. Whitaker’s role in the company would complicate his confirmation prospects should President Trump nominate him as attorney general.

Here is a video of Whitaker shilling for the company:

Invention Evaluation by Matthew Whitaker of World Patent Marketing from World Patent Marketing on Vimeo.

The trade commission complaint said that consumers were told they had to spend about $3,000 for a “Global Invention Royalty Analysis” to begin the process of examining an invention with the goal of getting a patent. After making the payment, the company’s clients were then pitched various packages ranging from approximately $8,000 to about $65,000.

After the company took the money, it typically began ignoring customers, who became frustrated that they were left in the dark. Mr. Cooper would often berate or threaten them when they asked questions or wanted their money back.

“Defendants and their lawyers have threatened consumers with lawsuits and even criminal charges and imprisonment for making any kind of complaint,” the trade commission’s complaint said.

And it appears Whitaker wasn't shy about throwing his wight around when people complained about the scam:

Mr. Whitaker, using his Iowa law firm’s email, told a man who had complained to Mr. Cooper that he was a former federal prosecutor and served on the company’s board.

“Your emails and message from today seem to be an apparent attempt at possible blackmail or extortion,” Mr. Whitaker wrote in August 2015. “You also mentioned filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and to smear World Patent Marketing’s reputation online. I am assuming you understand that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you.”

Clearly, in appointing him Acting Attorney General, Trump sees Whitaker as a kindred soul; he is now probably resting easier about the Mueller probe, given that he has now found just the man to end that pesky investigation.

Sad But True

H/t Michael de Adder

The Rabid Right Revealed

This demonstrates a great deal about the extreme right, doesn't it?

Tweet this back to @IngrahamAngle is she ever pretends she cares about what happens to other people. pic.twitter.com/lY3ilkk5vW

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) October 6, 2018

Not That Facts Matter Anymore

I wonder what would he say if someone sexually assaulted his Ivanka??pic.twitter.com/jBs13S7q4F https://t.co/Cvg4Hs4ZKd

— Maggie Resists Trump (@Stop_Trump20) October 4, 2018

Putting Populism In Perspective

Martin Amis offers his acerbic assessment of the current populist mania:

Conveniently Ignoring History

While I am sure there are some interests within Canada who will applaud Justin Trudeau's latest effort at placating Donald Trump, I am not one of them. As history well demonstrates, policies of appeasement never work.

Trudeau's latest attempt at taming the insensate Toddler-in-Chief is to be found in his craven signing on to the United States' renewal of its demonstrably and profoundly-failed war on drugs, a war from which a Stanford University study drew the following conclusions:

By making drugs illegal, this country has:

1) Put half a million people in prison : $10 Billion a year

2) Spent billions annually for expanded law enforcement

3) Fomented violence and death (in gang turf wars, overdoses from uncontrolled drug potency & shared needles/AIDS)

4) Eroded civil rights (property can be confiscated from you BEFORE you are found guilty; search and wiretap authority has expanded.)

5) Enriched criminal organizations.

It is apparent that such facts don't seem to matter to our government if we examine what Trudeau has leapt to endorse:

The statement reiterates the primacy of international “narcotics control” efforts, with an emphasis on criminalization and the role of law enforcement. It does not contain the word “human rights”; advocates for harm reduction and against mass incarceration have been trying to inject a rights-focused approach into international drug policy.

That our naif-like prime minister chooses to embrace such a retrograde approach has resulted in some very appropriate jeering:

Canada was rebuked on Monday by a group of world leaders and experts on drug policy for endorsing a Trump-led declaration renewing the “war on drugs” and for passing up a critical moment to provide global leadership on drug regulation.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark said she believed that both Canada and Mexico − which also signed the declaration even though president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has repeatedly said that the “war on drugs” has failed and he will pursue new policy − likely have signed on reluctantly, held hostage by the North American free-trade agreement talks in Washington, over which a critical deadline looms.

Fortunately, some countries held on to a modicum in integrity.

... 63 did not [sign]; the dissenters include major U.S. allies such as Germany, Norway and Spain.

The expedient nature of Canada's endorsement was not lost on Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of Britain, who sees the decision as a
diplomatic, not a policy-based decision:

“I guess there was a judgment to be made, which from my days in government I can understand, why they did it – if you’re fighting lots of battles at once, you probably decide which battles to choose,” he said.

I am sure many others would argue that antagonizing Trump yields no benefit. But then, perhaps they choose to ignore history.

Does the name Neville Chamberlin ring a bell?

The Vindication Of Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick is someone I admire. As previously noted in this blog, the former NFL player, whose decision to protest police brutality against blacks by taking a knee during the American national anthem, has paid dearly for his integrity. But vindication has finally arrived, vindication sure to end Donald Trump into new paroxysms of outrage:

Last week, an arbitrator ruled that Colin Kaepernick’s collusion grievance against the NFL can go forward. This week, Nike unveiled a new ad campaign starring the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who rose to prominence in 2016 when he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police violence against black Americans.

Given that Nike is the official uniform supplier for the NFL, this move is not without risk, but one the company believes is worth taking. And the backlash has already started. Take a look at the Twitter hashtag #JustBurnIt or #BoycottNike for some examples:

FVCK U NIKE THIS IS FOR SUPPORTING A MAN THAT DISRESPECTS OUR MEN IN BLUE #JustDolt #JustBurnIt



Ripping my Nike Air Max to own the libs #BoycottNike


Bloomberg News reports:

Nike shares slipped as much as 3.9 percent to $79 as of 9:31 a.m. Tuesday in New York -- the biggest intraday slide in five months.

They had climbed 31 percent this year through Friday’s close.

The fallout was no surprise but Nike may be betting that the upside of a Kaepernick endorsement is worth angering conservative Americans and supporters of President Donald Trump.

To its credit, this is not the first time Nike has waded into controversial waters:

Just a few weeks after Trump’s inauguration last year, the company launched a high-profile “Equality” campaign featuring LeBron James and Serena Williams. The campaign’s ambassadors included Ibtihaj Muhammad, a Muslim American fencer who wears a hijab when competing, and transgender triathlete Chris Mosier.

Now, all of this, of course, is about market share, but it is nonetheless refreshing to see a company taking a calculated risk while so many in Trump's America seem so keen on hewing to a very conservative, even reactionary, line.

And of course, for students of human nature, the reactions to this campaign constitute a fascinating Rorschach test, yet another conduit into the tortured and fractured American psyche.

Not to mention another dog whistle for the increasingly beleaguered Trump to blow.

Blessed Are The Benighted

My good friend Dave in Winnipeg often rails sardonically against the twin curses of intelligence and critical-thinking. If you start the following video at about the 50-second mark, you'll see that some have 'blessedly' been spared such affliction.

Words Mean Little Anymore

While I realize it is not healthy to obsess over things over which I have no control, I find myself consistently astounded and dispirited by the dystopian reality we now inhabit. While the world has been deteriorating for many years, I find it hard to deal with the fact that we now live in a world which, were it a movie script, would be rejected by all major studios as so preposterous that it would have no chance of box-office success. A script that showed such complete contempt for the audience's intelligence would be a very tough sell.

And yet that is precisely the world that Donald Trump and his ilk inhabit and cultivate, a world where the president and his enablers utter the most outrageous falsehoods shamelessly and fearlessly. We have descended into a world where words have lost their meaning.

The Star's Daniel Dale keeps a running tally of Trump's mendacity which you can filter by topic. I urge you to visit the site. As well, today's Star explores this phenomenon,

the most comprehensive picture yet available of what historians say is an unprecedented avalanche of serial lying.

The following news story features Trump in his full mendacious 'glory,' his absolute contempt for truth and, by extension, people, made manifest:



Although it is likely apocryphal, the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," has never seemed more relevant or more biting.

Amerika's Formula For Success

As noted the other day, the United States or, as I like to call it, Trump's Amerika, no longer even bothers to conceal its contempt for the rest of the world. It's disgraceful threats at the the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly against Ecuador for sponsoring a resolution to encourage breastfeeding, thereby reducing the profits of the corporate behemoths that produce baby formula exemplifies its shameless corporate thralldom.

Today, Star letter-writers weigh in on the magnitude of Amerika's crime against newborns:

The World Health Organization estimates that 800,000 child deaths worldwide each year could be prevented by breastfeeding.

A 2016 Harvard study found that 3,340 infant and maternal deaths a year could be prevented by breastfeeding in the U.S. alone. In Third World countries where destitute moms dilute formula, often with dirty water, the rates are much higher.

They want their infants to look like the pictures of healthy babies on the advertising they are given by sales people dressed as medical professionals. So why would Trump threaten to withdraw military and other aid to Ecuador if they put forth a resolution supporting breastfeeding at the World Health Assembly?

Because Third World countries are areas of major growth for Nestlé and Abbott Nutrition, and they are big Trump supporters.

It is once again time to boycott the products from both of these companies, like we did in the 1980s. It helped then. Let’s make a difference now.

Gail Rutherford, Toronto

It is indeed stunning, but probably not surprising, that the Trump government would threaten countries with punishing trade measures to support American business interests against a breastfeeding policy that experience and science have proven to saves lives. Baby formula kills when mixed with polluted water that can be the only water available.

The U.S. is going back to the days when the American government would wage wars and depose elected governments to support an American company. We must acknowledge that Trump is at war with the rest of the world — except for the other strongarm dictators.

Ian McLaurin, Port Perry, Ont.

American Thuggery

By almost any metric, the United States is a rogue nation. The depth of its depraved thuggery was recently made evident to the world:

A resolution to encourage breastfeeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breastfeeding” and another passage that called on policy-makers to restrict the promotion of food products many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

Then the U.S. delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

Captured by neoliberal forces, the once admired country resorted to mafia-like extortion to try to get its way:

Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.

Health advocates frantically sought another sponsor for the resolution, but none could be found as sundry countries cowered before the American behemoth. Then in a turn that amply demonstrates the inversion the world is currently experiencing, an unlikely ally came to the rescue:

It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them.

The move to thwart maternal health benefits is part of a much larger pattern of strong-arm tactics from a nation clearly unmoored from moral underpinnings:

The Americans also sought, unsuccessfully, to thwart a WHO effort aimed at helping poor countries obtain access to life-saving medicines. Washington, supporting the pharmaceutical industry, has long resisted calls to modify patent laws as a way of increasing drug availability in the developing world, but health advocates say the Trump administration has ratcheted up its opposition to such efforts.

God bless America? Not on your life.

She Stands By Her Man

When we talk on the phone, my good friend Dave in Winnipeg often talks about the twin 'curse' of intelligence and education. Life would be so much easier, he says sardonically, without them.

I was thinking about Dave last night as I watched an NBC News report detailing the actions of one of Trump's legion. As a group, those people are indefatigable, and, to use a word favoured by the religiously insane, 'convicted' in Trump. And it becomes immediately apparent that the woman in the following video has 'escaped' the curses Dave speaks of.

Viewer Advisory: Do not watch if you have just eaten.

Signs Of The Times

Trump's Amerika: "A Toxic Mix Of Senseless Cruelty And Corporate Greed"

The private-prison industry stands to make a fortune from Trump's immigration crackdown. This toxic mix of senseless cruelty and corporate greed means big profits.

Is This Really Something To Be Proud Of?

I find myself these days thinking about the beasts that have been unleashed upon society. In the United States, of course, it is Donald Trump who has made it acceptable to openly hate, mock, exclude and even kill. In Ontario, citizens have selected Doug Ford as their new premier. While both Trump and Ford masquerade as "for the people," they are really devoted only is unleashing the beast that resides in all of us, the most selfish and destructive aspects of humanity, for their own gain. All they have to do, as time goes on, is to find new targets for their diabolical agenda.

I was out walking, and a question occurred to me: What is it that people feel when they have had ample opportunity to spew their bile, vent their prejudices, vituperate a particular group or cause, or given the middle finger to succeeding generations by vociferously opposing any measures that might help mitigate the climate change that is quickly overtaking all of us? At least when we do something positive, whether it be a contribution to a cause, support for an issue, a personal kindness or gesture that recognizes and acknowledges our shared humanity, we are left at least a little enlarged, a little bigger inside for what we have attempted, maybe even a little more fulfilled.

What do those who choose to embrace the darkest paths feel?

Perhaps an appropriate frame, if not an answer, can be found from an episode of Breaking Bad, a series about a high school chemistry teacher who turns his resentments and the fact that he is dying into a crystal meth empire, one that ultimately costs countless lives. It was a show I was addicted to (no pun intended, well, okay, maybe a small one) despite the fact that it was the darkest meditation on human nature I have ever seen.

In the following scene, Jesse Pinkman, seduced into the crystal meth business by his former teacher, Walter White, have a discussion:

And this is where Jesse now found himself. Sat in his partner's living room, trying to set himself free from the life he could no longer be a part of, with Mr White not willing to allow him to go.

Finally, Walt spoke up again, his words hard and determined. And upon hearing them, Jesse knew he was fighting a battle he couldn't win.

"Jesse, you once asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business.” Walt looked up from his glass, and eyed Jesse. “I'm in the empire business.”

Jesse gaped back at him, and managed a small shake of his head. Bringing a hand up to cover his ever worsening head ache, he replied, “I don't know, Mr White. Is a meth empire really something to be that proud of?”

And that is the same question I pose here, in this later part of my life, looking at a world gone mad:

Is your embrace of a darkness that does nothing other than to weaken and to destroy really something to be proud of?

This Is What They Are Fleeing

While Trump and his apostles demonize the migrant families seeking sanctuary in the U.S. as rapists and drug dealers, here is a part of their reality the profoundly intolerant choose to ignore:

A Special Place In Hell Awaits Part 2

H/t Steve Breen

A Special Place In Hell Awaits

H/t Ward Sutton

This, From The 'Greatest Country On Earth'

I guess when you live in that bastion of democracy, the United States of America, you must be mindful, shall we say, of an unwritten set of rules:

Rob Rogers has been working as the editorial cartoonist at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for the past 25 years. On Thursday, he was fired.

A little less than two weeks ago, the The Inquirer ran a story about how the Post-Gazette had been shutting down Rogers’ cartoons since March, when Keith Burris took over as editorial director in a merger with the Toledo Blade.

It is unusual for a staff cartoonist to have an entire week’s worth of political cartoons spiked. Signe Wilkinson, the Inquirer and Daily News’ Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, said she has had just one cartoon killed in her tenure — a drawing that was spiked from the Inquirer but ran in the Daily News.

Rogers’ cartoons were replaced in print by the work of syndicated artists and three cartoons by Toledo Blade staff cartoonist Kirk Walters. In last Tuesday’s paper, under a cartoon about gun control by syndicated cartoonist Robert Ariail, Rogers was listed as having “the day off.”

What was wrong with Roberts’ cartoons? He posted them to his Twitter account. Maybe we can find a pattern?

I guess Rogers did not get the memo that freedom of speech is not absolute, especially when it comes to holding 'Dear Leader' to account.

Setting The Record Straight

Robert Reich is one of America's true heroes. He seems indefatigable in his efforts to educate the American public as a counter to the lies and distortions of Donald Trump. Given the prodigious challenges involved in bringing people toward the light, I have no idea where he gets either his resolve or his energy.

The following is but one example of his work:

Trump's vile attacks against immigrants are as dumb as they are racist and xenophobic. The truth is new immigrants strengthen our communities, contribute to the economy and pay billions in taxes. We must not allow Trump's bigotry to go unchallenged. pic.twitter.com/0LzN8UIjXR

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) May 17, 2018