Why don't Humans have a Penis Bone? Scientists may now know !

It can be as long as a finger in a monkey. In the walrus, it can be two feet long. But the human male has lost it completely. And researchers are a little stumped.

Known as the baculum to scientists with an interest, the penis bone is a marvel of evolution. It pops up in mammals and primates around the world, but varies so much in terms of length and whether it is present at all, that it is described as the most diverse bone ever to exist.

Prompted by the extraordinary differences in penis bone length found in the animal
kingdom, scientists set out to reconstruct the evolutionary story of the baculum, by tracing its appearance in mammals and primates throughout history.

They found that the penis bone evolved in mammals more than 95 million years ago and was present in the first primates that emerged about 50 million years ago. From that moment on, the baculum became larger in some animals and smaller in others. The stump-tailed macaque, an animal that weighs only 10kg, has an extremely long baculum for its size, with the bone extending for 5cm. The bone is five times the size of the baculum in the collared mangabey, which is a slightly larger monkey.

Kit Opie who led the study at University College London, said that penis bone length was longer in males that engaged in what he called “prolonged intromission.” In plain

English, that means that the act of penetration lasts for more than three minutes, a strategy that helps the male impregnate the female while keeping her away from competing males. The penis bone, which attaches at the tip of the penis rather than the base, provides structural support for male animals that engage in prolonged intromission.

In chimps, the penis bone is no longer than a human fingernail. The tininess of the bone correlates with the very short spell that the male spends mating, in the order of seven seconds. In chimpanzee groups, females mate with all the males, in what appears to be a strategy to reduce the risk of her children being killed by older males. “It gives each male an idea that they may have fathered the subsequent offspring, and it is in her interests to get that done quickly,” Opie said.

Humans may have lost their penis bones when monogamy emerged as the dominant reproductive strategy during the time of Homo erectus about 1.9 million years ago, the scientists believe. In monogamous relationships, the male does not need to spend a long time penetrating the female, because she is not likely to be leapt upon by other amorous males. That, at least, is the theory.

“We think that is when the human baculum would have disappeared because the mating system changed at that point,” Opie said. “This may have been the final nail in the coffin for the already diminished baculum, which was then lost in ancestral humans.” Details of the research are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society.

The Way I See It......with the reduced competition for mates, you are less likely to need a baculum, Despite what we might want to think, we are actually one of the species that comes in below the three minute cut-off where these things come in handy. I'm sure most wives can verify this fact.

Time to Trump the Climate Hysteria !

The Clexit Coalition has pledged to assist any government or politician seeking to exit the Paris Agreement and to curb the wasteful and destructive UN/IPCC.

The Secretary of Clexit (Climate Exit Coalition), Mr Viv Forbes (photo left) of Australia, said that Clexit could call on over 190 well-qualified climate realists from 26 countries to provide scientific, business, legal and political support and advice.
 See: http://clexit.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/clexit-members.pdf

Clexit sees four main priorities:

Firstly, de-fang the Paris Climate Treaty by refusing to sign it, by ignoring any deals signed by others without a supporting referendum, or by giving notice of formal withdrawal.

The Paris Treaty is now a Toothless Tiger

Secondly, de-fund the global warming industry – no tax payer funding for the UN/IPCC, no government money for climate tourism or conferences, no government grants for climate propaganda posing as “research”, no tax exemptions for green “charities” and no government subsidies for green energy.

Thirdly, de-staff all government climate bureaucracies.

And fourthly, re-educate – ensure that the climate curriculum in schools and universities is based on good science and real evidence, and not political agenda.

These four actions - de-fang, de-fund, de-staff and re-educate will cool the climate hysteria, with huge and immediate benefits for tax payers, jobs, industries and energy costs and security. It will also end the doomsday horror stories terrifying our young people. And if there is additional carbon dioxide in the air, our Earth will be greener and produce more food.

Trump is likely to Slash and Burn the Obama Climate policy:
 http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=c920274f2a364603849bbb505&id=0b5620ebdc&e=816c21f57a

The same sceptical questions are being asked in France, Poland, Hungary, UK, Canada, Russia and Germany; even at the Climate Carnival in Marrakesh, Morocco: http://clexit.net/2016/11/17/marrakech-papers-by-clexit-members/

The Way I See it......Brexit and the Trump revolution are just the start. Have a listen to what happened in Australian Parliamentary offices recently:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwQ6BiqeBcg&feature=youtu.be
 (Both Senator Roberts of Australia and Tim Ball of Canada are Founding Members of Clexit).

CARRIE FISHER didn't Love that Famous STAR WARS Gold Bikini as Much as You did !

As the world continues to try and wrap its head around the fact that we lost Carrie Fisher, a plethora of memories spring to the forefront, ranging from her iconic roles, her contributions to TV and film, her feminist pride, and, of course, her famous Star Wars attire.

Aside from her Princess Leia buns, Fisher’s character brought another style trademark to pop culture when she donned the ever-so-famous gold “slave” bikini in Return of the Jedi.

While many became big fans of the outfit (Ross Gellar wasn’t the only one), and some even channeled their inner Princess Leia for Halloween, the truth of the matter is Fisher didn’t really care for the get-up as much as everyone else did.

The actress told People in 1983, that the “slave Leia” costume wasn’t exactly the most comfortable thing she’s put on, explaining that, “I started checking for any bounce or slip after takes,” adding, “It was, ‘CUT. Hey, how they doin’? The hooters in place?'”

She was also unapologetic about her annoyance with having to constantly be mindful of her body positioning because she didn’t want to have any unflattering angles (#thestruggle).

Fisher once told NPR in an interview, that her scene, “was like, ‘Where am I in all of this?’ … I have to stay with the slug with the big tongue! Nearly naked, which is not a style choice for me. … It wasn’t my choice. When [director George Lucas] showed me the outfit, I thought he was kidding and it made me very nervous. I had to sit very straight because I couldn’t have lines on my sides, like little creases. No creases were allowed, so I had to sit very, very rigid straight.”

There was a payoff, though.

“What redeems it is I get to kill him, which was so enjoyable,” Fisher added. “I sawed his neck off with that chain that I killed him with. I really relished that because I hated wearing that outfit and sitting there rigid straight, and I couldn’t wait to kill him.”

Aside from the discomfort and posture-control, there was a deeper distaste for her ensemble, which stemmed from feeling belittled to a hot bod in a nearly naked outfit. And that’s something she made sure Star Wars actress Daisy Ridley would not tolerate.

“You should fight for your outfit,” she reportedly told the star. “Don’t be a slave like I was.”

Despite the rough relationship with her onscreen wardrobe, Fisher still poked fun at the whole thing in her book Wishful Drinking, where she stated that when the time comes, she hopes her obituary would read, “I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”

Fisher passed away on Tuesday after she suffered a heart attack on a flight from London to Los Angeles. She was 60 years old.

Speaking on behalf of her daughter Billie Lourd, the family’s spokesman Simon Halls announced the news. “It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” he told E! News in a statement. “She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly. Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers.”

While several celebrities and fans have taken to Twitter to mourn the late actress, some of Carrie’s fans in Hollywood found the PERFECT way to honor the 60-year-old.

After a beloved celeb passes, people in the Los Angeles area quite often flock to the artist’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to pay tribute — but unfortunately, Miz Fisher does NOT have one!

Well, since there are PLENTY of people who love Billie Lourd‘s mom, fans decided to make their OWN star from one of the many blank ones near Grauman’s Chinese Theatre! SO SMART.

One Instagram user took to the picture sharing site to show off the star he made for the Star Wars icon as he posted:

YASSS! What’s MORE amazing, is just a couple hours later, another fan took a snap of the same pop up memorial and it already had a TON of love:

While both of Carrie’s parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, each have a star on the Walk, we’re sure the late actress will get hers sooner rather than later.

There were also several fans who gathered outside of Grauman’s near where some of the Star Wars characters’ hand and footprints are located in order to pay tribute — though Fisher’s are not included.

We still can’t believe Miz Fisher and now her Mom is gone from a stroke while making funeral arrangements and our hearts go out to all of those affected by this tragic loss. The ladies were last seen together at the 2015 Screen Actors Guild award night.

The Way I See It.......the toughness Carrie showed playing Princess Leia was carried with her through her lifetime. The stress of failed marriages, alcohol and drug abuse always had her come up fighting. She didn't fear death.

“No,” Fisher told the Rolling Stone in an interview posted a month ago, when asked if she feared death. “I fear dying. Anything with pain associated with it, I don’t like. I’ve been there for a couple of people when they were dying; it didn’t look like fun. But if I was gonna do it, I’d want someone like me around. And I will be there!”

Fisher had joked about her future obituary in her 2008 memoir Wishful Drinking and the quote was widely circulated on social media after her death.

The actress said Star Wars creator George Lucas told her she could not wear a bra as Leia because “there’s no underwear in space” and that when one became weightless there, their bra would not expand with their body, so the garment would strangle them.

“Now I think that this would make for a fantastic obit—so I tell my younger friends that no matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra,” Fisher wrote.

Chiropractic Care May Make Your Mind Sharper !

Editor's Note:  Sorry for this delayed release of important research; it was somehow mislaid.

Monday, 1 August 2016, 11:40 am
Press Release: New Zealand Chiropractors' Association
 
International Researchers Say Chiropractic May Make Your Mind Sharper
Ground-breaking research indicates that chiropractic care may make your brain function better, according to the New Zealand Chiropractors’ Association (NZCA).

A collaborative study on the effects of manipulation of the spine on brain function between Denmark’s Aalborg University, the New Zealand Centre for Chiropractic Research, the Health & Rehabilitation Research Institute, AUT University and University of Ontario Institute of Technology, published earlier this year[1] in the journal Neural Plasticity suggests that, at least in part, the mechanisms by which spinal manipulation improves performance are due to a change in processing of information at the pre-frontal cortex.

Dr Cassandra Fairest, chiropractor and spokesperson for the NZCA explains: `The focus of chiropractic care is on the health and integrity of the nervous system. The health and function of the

spine affects the entire nervous system. We already know that the spinal cord is an integral part of the central nervous system and processes information just like parts of the brain do[2] and the latest New Zealand research into the effects of chiropractic care suggests that it may have an important role to play in improving executive function.’

Executive function is the mechanism by which the brain integrates and coordinates the operations of multiple neural systems to solve problems and achieve goals based on the ever-changing environment around us[3],[4].

The researchers point out that executive function is considered to be a product of the coordinated operation of various neural systems and is essential for achieving any particular goal. The pre-frontal cortex is believed to be the main brain structure responsible for enabling this coordination and control. It requires planning a sequence of subtasks to accomplish a goal, focusing attention on relevant information as well as inhibiting irrelevant distractors, being able to switch attention between tasks, monitoring memory, initiation of activity, and responding to stimuli[5].

Dr Fairest adds: `A change in pre-frontal activity following chiropractic care may therefore explain and/or link some of the varied improvements in central nervous system function previously observed in other research, such as improved joint position sense error[6], reaction time[7], cortical

processing[8], cortical sensorimotor integration[9], reflex excitability[10], motor control[11], and lower limb muscle strength[12].

`All this research, much of it from the New Zealand College of Chiropractic Centre for Chiropractic Research[13] and funded by the Australian Spinal Research Foundation strongly suggests that chiropractic care/adjustments can significantly improve brain¬-body communication and coordination.’

According to Dr Fairest: `We know that chiropractic care assists brain function in many ways, one of which is proprioceptive function (perception) and this improves the accuracy of the internal brain map so your brain accurately knows what is occurring within your body and the surrounding environment continuously. Environment relates to the processes inside the body, as well as its immediate surroundings’.

The Way I See It.......it seems this research suggests adjusting improves pre-frontal cortex activity, a part of the brain that is responsible for so much higher level function, then it is possible that a chiropractic adjustment could well impact on things like behavior, decision making, memory and attention, intelligence, processing of pain and the emotional response to it would seem that chiropractic really does have a lot to offer!

[1] http://www.hindawi.com/journals/np/2016/3704964/abs/
[2]http://www.queensu.ca/gazette/content/spinalcordprocessesinformationjustareasbrain
[3] S. Funahashi and J. M. Andreau, “Prefrontal cortex and neural mechanisms of executive function,” Journal of Physiology Paris, vol. 107, no. 6, pp. 471–482, 2013.
[4] E. E. Smith and J. Jonides, “Storage and executive processes in the frontal lobes,” Science, vol. 283, no. 5408, pp. 1657–1661, 1999.
[5] D. Pineda, A. Ardila, M. Rosselli, C. Cadavid, S. Mancheno, and S. Mejia, “Executive dysfunctions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” International Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 96, no. 3-4, pp. 177–196, 1998
[6] H. Haavik and B. Murphy, “Subclinical neck pain and the effects of cervical manipulation on elbow joint position sense,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 88–97, 2011.
[7] D. D. Kelly, B. A. Murphy, and D. P. Backhouse, “Use of a mental rotation reaction-time paradigm to measure the effects of upper cervical adjustments on cortical processing: a pilot study,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 246–251, 2000.
[8] H. Haavik-Taylor and B. Murphy, “Cervical spine manipulation alters sensorimotor integration: a somatosensory evoked potential study,” Clinical Neurophysiology, vol. 118, no. 2, pp. 391–402, 2007
[9] H. H. Taylor and B. Murphy, “Altered central integration of dual somatosensory input after cervical spine manipulation,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 178–188, 2010.
[10] E. Suter, G. McMorland, W. Herzog, and R. Bray, “Conservative lower back treatment reduces inhibition in knee-extensor muscles: a randomized controlled trial,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 76–80, 2000
[11] P. Marshall and B. Murphy, “The effect of sacroiliac joint manipulation on feed-forward activation times of the deep abdominal musculature,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 196–202, 2006.
[12] B. Hillermann, A. N. Gomes, C. Korporaal, and D. Jackson, “A pilot study comparing the effects of spinal manipulative therapy with those of extra-spinal manipulative therapy on quadriceps muscle strength,” Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 145–149, 2006.
[13] Niazi IK, Türker KS, Flavel S, Kinget M, Duehr J & Haavik H. (2015) Changes in H­ reflex and V waves following spinal manipulation. Experimental Brain Research. In press. DOI: 10.1007/s00221­014­4193­5 URL link: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00221­014­4193­5

AUSTRALIANS Want to Know: Who Let in the Sudanese?

The  crime wave in the state of Victoria by people of African descent has been astonishing, with the latest victim  a young woman who was stopped while cycling and carved up by three Africans (one which was a female). I have repeatedly asked in previous blog postings (April 26, 2011) & (January 28, 2014) about the crime-plagued Sudanese : who let them in?      And now we know.

Here is Amanda Vanstone, Immigration Minister in the Howard Government, in January 2007 attacking activists demanding she do more for boat people: At a time when another major refugee crisis is unfolding in Sudan we should be trying to take a broader perspective.The latest refugee crisis in Sudan is not the first. . 

Comparatively little is known of this crisis in Australia. This should be a matter of shame to some refugee advocates within Australia...Australia has provided permanent resettlement to more than 10,000 people from southern Sudan in the past three years.

Vanstone was Immigration Minister for all that time, having taken over from Phillip Ruddock in 2003:

In 1984, when Labor held government under Bob Hawke, the intake of Sudanese refugees for resettlement was zero. During the ensuing decade just 34 Sudanese refugees were resettled in Australia. The intake jumped to 354 in 1994-95, heralding a rapidly increasing flow of Sudanese every year, rising to 6147 in 2003-2004. 

Experts such as Paris Aristotle from the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture say the influx was prompted in part by requests from the UNHCR for Australia to give priority to Africa in refugee resettlement quotas because of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the long-running civil war in Sudan..In Australia, Sudanese-born humanitarian entrants have topped the offshore grants list every year since 2003.  

But in 2007 a new Immigration Minister realized a disaster was in the making.

Kevin Andrews, who assumed the role of Immigration Minister on January 30 that year, has turned that sentiment on its head. Within a week of starting in the role, newspapers reported that Andrews planned to seek support from cabinet to drastically reduce the intake of Sudanese refugees because of concerns about a rising tide of Sudanese gangs and related crime. 

Over the course of the year, Andrews's concerns about the alleged inability of

Sudanese refugees to integrate have become more explicit, culminating on Monday when he made plain that integration was to become one of the key criteria for determining refugee resettlement quotas. 

"Some groups don't seem to be settling and adjusting to the Australian way of life as quickly as we would hope, and therefore it makes sense to ... slow down the rate of intake from countries such as Sudan," he said.

Naturally, moral grand-standers of the Left refused to believe there was a problem:

New England independent deadshit MP Tony Windsor is not convinced the latest debate does not have an electoral purpose.."Philip Ruddock for years, when the boat-people situation was on, used to say, 'We've got to look after the Africans'. "They seem to have settled in quite well... Kevin Andrews has got a bit of explaining to do, otherwise people will quite rightly say he's playing the race card."

Victoria Police in 2007 spread false information:

But worst was the reaction of Victoria Police, led by a typical Labor-appointed dead-beat, Christine Nixon.  Nixon claimed Andrews was wrong about

Sudanese crime rates: “They’re not, in a sense, represented more than the proportion of them in the population.” A police multicultural liaison officer agreed and backed the lie; “There’s an under-representation of the Sudanese in crime stats.” 

Those police claims were false. Figures let slip by Nixon the following year revealed crime rates for Sudanese youth at least four times the state average.

Labor smeared Andrews:

“It has been a long time since I have heard such a pure form of racism out of the mouth of any Australian politician,” sneered another Labor deadshit, Queensland premier Anna Bligh.

The Leftist media vilified Andrews, rather than the Immigration Ministers who had originally put Australians in danger - Vanstone and Ruddock:

The Age newspaper accused Andrews of making “unpleasant and inflammatory” comments to provoke “a predictably base reaction from those sensitive to immigration on racial grounds”.  Disgusting !

Yet even in 2007, as journalist, Andrew Bolt, wrote at the time, the evidence was urgent and compelling that a grave mistake had been made.

Of course many Sudanese will make excellent contributions to this country. Of course, and of course and of course. But it's also clear that a worrying number of Sudanese immigrants - coming from their very different culture and a much poorer country with much lower standards of education - are struggling to make their way here and to integrate. 

Recent signs of that include a huge brawl, worries by Sudanese parents about their uncontrolable children dropping out, concerns by teachers of a lack of " life skills", vicious assaults, and police warnings of gang violence.

A state school principal has also told me how very hard she's found it to integrate the African students in her school, given how few of them have any English or much respect for authority. What makes her challenge worse, she says, is that she has so many of them, leading then naturally to form a "gang" rather than be forced to assimilate. 

We can ignore all this, as we usually, do and shout "racist" at those who point out that we have a problem. But we need to rethink just how - or even whether - we resettle immigrants whose culture is so very, very different.

Even Sudanese defenders of the Sudanese refugees back then were actually admitting that we were admitting people more likely to resort to violence:

On 3AW, a Sudanese community spokeswoman asks for understanding: The implication of this journey (as a refugee) could make people prone to be violent.

Er, OK.

And even then, in 2007, the media should have realised our refugee and immigration program - which had already let in hard-to-assimilate Lebanese Muslims - had exposed us to yet another completely needless danger:

A SUDANESE refugee who embarked on a three-day rape spree and sliced an elderly woman's throat a month after reaching Australia will serve at least the next 17 years in jail. A shame they don't deport him back to his Godless country.

Hakeem Hakeem, 21, was yesterday sentenced to 24 years' jail, with a non-parole period of 17 years, for a string of depraved sexual attacks in Melbourne's southeast in March 2005. 

The Supreme Court heard that, just one month after arriving in Australia, Hakeem set out on a drug and alcohol-fuelled campaign of terror on the streets of Dandenong. I wrote a posting entited: ''The Sounds of Silence instead of Honesty''  (May 27, 2013) exposing Labor Scumbag, Mark Dreyfus, Attorney-General, as a liar when he painted Dandenong 3 years ago as; ''Our community is a wonderful example to others of a modern, diverse and harmonious society.'' All the while his city was going to hell in a handbasket: worse now! 

What have we done? Why don't we learn?

And a word from Vanstone and Ruddock on how they got the Sudanese intake so horribly wrong would be useful.

The Way I See It........there is no excuse for their behavior for the majority of these kids, their parents fled their country for a chance to bring these kids up in a peaceful environment. Now these kids do not respect their parents or the laws of Australia, maybe (hopefully) Peter Dutton will start sending the rotten apples back, then they will realize how lucky they were to live in a peaceful country. It does not matter what color,creed or religious persuasion. We are all (or should be) human beings. The Victorian Politicians and  Police need to pull their heads out of the sand otherwise it will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. 

Maureen Dowd reads Fellow Leftists the Riot Act over Trump Trauma !

Leftist Maureen Dowd (below) of the anti-Trump New York Times has had enough and passes on advice from her Republican brother Kevin: ''get over yourselves, you sanctimonious, dictatorial, self-pitying crybabies.''

The election was a complete repudiation of Barack Obama: his fantasy world of political correctness, the politicization of the Justice Department and the I.R.S., an out-of-control E.P.A., his neutering of the military, his nonsupport of the police and his fixation on things like transgender bathrooms. Since he became president, his party has lost 63 House seats, 10 Senate seats and 14 governorships. 

The country had signaled strongly in the last two midterms that they were not happy. The Dems’ answer was to give them more of the same from a person they did not like or trust. 

Preaching — and pandering — with a message of inclusion, the Democrats have instead become a party where incivility and bad manners are taken for granted, rudeness is routine, religion is mocked and there is absolutely no respect for a differing opinion. This did not go down well in the Midwest, where Trump flipped three blue states and 44 electoral votes. 

The rudeness reached its peak when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed by attendees of “Hamilton” and then pompously lectured by the cast. This may play well with the New York theater crowd but is considered boorish and unacceptable by those of us taught to respect the office of the president and vice president, if not the occupants. 

Here is a short primer for the young protesters. If your preferred candidate loses, there is no need for mass hysteria, canceled midterms, safe spaces, crying rooms or group primal screams. You might understand this better if you had not received participation trophies, undeserved grades to protect your feelings or even if you had a proper understanding of civics. The Democrats are now crying that Hillary had more popular votes. That can be her participation trophy...

Mr. Trump received over 62 million votes, not all of them cast by homophobes, Islamaphobes, racists, sexists, misogynists or any other “ists.” I would caution Trump deniers that all of the crying and whining is not good preparation for the coming storm. The liberal media, both print and electronic, has lost all credibility...

The media’s criticism of Trump’s high-level picks as “not diverse enough” or “too white and male” — a day before he named two women and offered a cabinet position to an African-American — magnified this fact. 

Here is a final word to my Democratic friends. The election is over. There will not be a do-over. So let me bid farewell to Al Sharpton, Ben Rhodes and the Clintons. Note to Miley, Cher, Barbra, Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham: Your plane is waiting. And to Jon Stewart, who talked about moving to another planet: Your spaceship is waiting. To Bruce Springsteen, Jay Z, Beyoncé and Katy Perry, thanks for the free concerts, now piss off! 

And finally, to all the foreign countries that contributed to the Clinton Foundation, there will not be a payoff or a rebate. 

As Eddie Murphy so eloquently stated in the movie “48 Hrs.”: “There’s a new sheriff in town.” And he is going to be here for 1,461 days. Merry Christmas. 

As deplorables, we will enjoy seeing him Drain-that- Swamp in Washington.


The Way I See It.......Donald Trump pulled off one of the greatest political feats in modern history by defeating Hillary Clinton and the vaunted Clinton machine!

NOTE: The BIG STORY of this election is that the Democratic National Committee, Clinton Campaign, and most of the media conspired to promote violence against American voters and blame it on Donald J. Trump. It’s a real story, with video from Project Veritas, confirmatory emails from Wikileaks, and records of payments for rent-a-rioters in the Federal election database.

Shame on these failed media organizations, who have given in-kind contributions to the Democratic Party and completely lost their credibility. More shame on them for trying to cover up their foolishness by pretending that the Fake News originates anywhere but their own organizations.

To Understand Trump, Americans Will Need to Learn Russian !

The Russian language has two words for truth — a linguistic quirk that seems relevant to our current political climate, especially because of all the disturbing ties between the newly elected president and the Kremlin.

The word for truth in Russian that most Americans know is “pravda” — the truth that seems evident on the surface. It’s subjective and infinitely malleable, which is why the Soviet Communists called their party “Pravda.” Despots, autocrats and other cynical politicians are adept at manipulating pravda to their own ends.

But the real truth, the underlying, cosmic, unshakable truth of things is called “istina” in Russian. You can fiddle with the pravda all you want, but you can’t change the istina.

For the Trump team, the pravda of the 2016 election is that not all Trump voters are explicitly racist. But the istina of the 2016 campaign is that
Trump’s base was heavily dependent on racists and xenophobes, Trump basked in and stoked their anger and hatred, and all those who voted for him cast a ballot for a man they knew to be a racist, sexist xenophobe. That was an act of racism.

Trump’s team took to Twitter with lightning speed recently to sneer at the conclusion by all 17 intelligence agencies that the Kremlin hacked Democratic Party emails for the specific purpose of helping Trump and hurting  Hillary Clinton. Trump said the intelligence agencies got it wrong about Iraq, and that someone else could have been responsible for the hack and that the Democrats were just finding another excuse for losing.

The istina of this mess is that powerful evidence suggests that the Russians set out to interfere in American politics, and that Trump, with his rejection of Western European alliances and embrace of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was their chosen candidate.

The pravda of Trump’s selection of Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil, as

secretary of state is that by choosing an oil baron who has made billions for his company by collaborating with Russia, Trump will make American foreign policy beholden to American corporate interests.

Yes, Tillerson has ignored American interests repeatedly, including in Russia and Iraq, and has been trying to remove sanctions imposed after Russia’s seizure of Crimea because they interfered with one of his many business deals. But take him out of the equation in the Trump cabinet and nothing changes. Trump has made it plain, with every action he takes, that he is going to put every facet of policy, domestic and foreign, at the service of corporate America.

The istina here is that Tillerson is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.That’s bad enough, but the istina is far worse. For one thing, American foreign policy has been in thrall to American corporate interests since, well, since there were American corporations. Just look at the mess this country created in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Middle East to serve American companies.

The pravda is that Trump was right in saying that the intelligence agencies got it wrong about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.

But the istina is that Trump’s contempt for the intelligence services is profound and dangerous. He’s not getting daily intelligence briefings anymore, apparently because they are just too dull to hold his attention.

And now we know that Condoleeza Rice was instrumental in bringing Tillerson to Trump’s attention. As national security adviser and then secretary of state for president George W. Bush, Rice was not just wrong about Iraq, she helped fabricate the story that Hussein had nuclear

weapons.

Trump and Tillerson clearly think they are a match for the wily and infinitely dangerous Putin, but as they move foward with their plan to collaborate with Russia instead of opposing its imperialist tendencies, they might keep in mind another Russian saying, this one from Lenin.

“There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience,” he wrote. “A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.”

The Way I See It.......Putin has that philosophy hard-wired into his political soul. When it comes to using scoundrels to get what he wants, he is a professional, and Trump is only an amateur. That is the istina of the matter.