Why I'm going to Las Vegas on Valentine's Day

    Unfortunately, that old TV hype isn't true.  What goes on in Vegas does not stay in Vegas after all.

     For years now we all had assumed that the capital of America was in Washington DC.  We were wrong.  It turns out that the capital of America might actually be Las Vegas.  Ha!  You thought I would say Moscow?  Wrong again.

     So now I intend to put on my big-girl political-blogger hat and to go visit the real seat of power in America -- which turns out to be, of all places, the Venetian casino.  And while I'll only be staying at CircusCircus because it's cheaper and more fun, the Venetian will be right down the street.  And the Venetian is owned by Sheldon Adelson, the man who donated approximately 75 million dollars to the Trump campaign. 

      According to Casino.org, "Las Vegas Sands billionaire Sheldon Adelson dumped millions into super PACs supporting the Trump movement.  The Venetian and Palazzo owner spent $25 million on Trump ads in the final week alone, following the FBI’s announcement that it was reopening its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, and is rumored to have poured upwards of $75 million in total into Trump’s GOP campaign".  https://www.casino.org/news/president-elect-donald-trump-las-vegas-ties-gambling-legislation-impact

      And Adelson allegedly also spends billions of dollars supporting Israeli neo-colonialists in the Middle East, trying to convince everyone here that Israel is just a sweet little democracy and not the war-monger/Gestapo/Mafioso that it actually is -- as well as the being the main force in the first place, along with AIPAC, the CIA, Bush, Clinton and Obama, behind creating all those desperate refugees that Trump is now banning.  https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/370655-israel-tests-secret-weapons/

     For instance, in "The Devil's Chessboard," (which should be required reading in every single high school history class in America), David Talbot states that many prominent Nazi war criminals ended up working in Allen Dulles' CIA.  Some of these Nazi creeps were highly active in creating and carrying out the Final Solution -- and yet where was the Mossad to bring them to justice?  Hand in glove with Dulles, the devil himself.  These Nazi war criminals not only never paid for their ghastly misdeeds but also ended up working in Washington, side by side with the Mossad.  http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/gehlen.htm

     So.  What self-respecting freelance journalist/war correspondent/political blogger wouldn't want to go to Las Vegas to write about all this crap?  And especially on Valentine's Day -- because it appears that our nation's heart is there already.  https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/370655-israel-tests-secret-weapons/

PS:  Another reason I want to go to Las Vegas is that it may be the last time I have any cash.  Lean green.  Moola.  Any of that stuff.  And not just me personally either -- all of us.  Under marching orders from America, India has just become an almost-cashless society.  Most of its small-denomination folding moola is now worth crap.  Millions are effected, mainly the poor, because none of the large denominations have been recalled.

     Without money or access to ATMs or debit cards or even to banks, India's poor are now expected to just quietly go away and die of starvation.  The dice were definitely loaded on this one.  Genocide by "war" isn't fast enough?  Now they gots financial genocide on the table too?  http://thesaker.is/india-crime-of-the-century-financial-genocide/

     And odds are that America will soon go the way of India and we too won't be saving our ten-spots, twins or Benjamins under the mattress any more -- so why not take them to Las Vegas while they're still worth the paper they're printed on. 
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153957915661618&set=a.10153957915156618.1073741985.519281617&type=3&theater

PPS:  I got a really good deal on my trip to Vegas at http://cheaptickets.com.  Just $175 plus tax for airfare from Oakland and four nights at CircusCircus.  Except that Spirit Airlines only lets you take one item on board, 16x14x12 inches, without paying an additional fee.  So it's not gonna be okay if I lose my shirt in Vegas -- because I won't have packed any extras.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html 

Building affordable housing -- Hobbit-style

     You don't need to live in a five-bedroom big-box suburban McMansion in order to stay warm and dry in the winter.  Just ask Bilbo Baggins.

     Recently I attended a vigil in memory of a homeless woman who had frozen to death on the mean streets of Berkeley, CA.  You wouldn't expect something like that to happen here in Berkeley -- but it did.  Homeless people brought candles to the steps of City Hall in order to honor this poor woman's memory.  Someone also donated a portable space-heater to help keep the more fragile vigil-keepers warm.  But in an ironic twist of fate, cops arrived and confiscated a space-heater at a vigil for a homeless person who had just frozen to death.  But I digress.

     With our federal government now threatening to shut down HUD subsidized housing in order to have more money to give to banksters, big oil and "war" profiteers, this sudden shift in the distribution of our tax dollars, away from the rest of us and into the pockets of the disgustingly-wealthy, could mean that approximately ten million Americans would be kicked off of HUD subsidy programs. 

     "Households that receive assistance comprise 9.8 million people, or roughly 3 percent of the U.S. population," sez HUD.  Imagine what it would be like if housing subsidies all suddenly disappeared?  Hey, it could happen -- and probably will. 

     If three out of every one hundred Americans suddenly found themselves on the mean streets of our country, the whole face of America the Beautiful would change overnight.  https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/50782-lowincomehousing-onecolumn.pdf  Suddenly there would be this swamp of homeless people around us.  Cincinnati would look more like the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.  Seattle would look like some barrio in Mexico City.  Atlanta would look like a scene out of "The Walking Dead".  And parts of Berkeley would look like a Hooverville shanty town left over from the 1930s Great Depression.  Hell, all of America would look like that.

     HUD subsidized housing serves as a disguise, a stage set, a prop -- so that the world won't know how poor so many Americans actually are.  It's a small price to pay.  But I digress again.  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2007/01/hud-section-8-housing-revenge-of.html

     What I really want to talk about is how Americans can solve this very-real housing crisis which has descended upon us like a giant black cloud, whether we have HUD subsidies or not.  And I would then suggest that we solve this housing crisis by taking advice from the Hobbits.  "Go small or go home!"  Just sayin'.

     Mike Lee, a member of the Berkeley Homeless Commission, suggests that we build lots of "tiny houses" -- for a price as low as $16,000 each.  http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emeg45jjkm/5-boulder-by-rocky-mountain-tiny-houses/#6c6bb4de19b9  My friend Jennifer suggests that we bring back the good old-fashioned trailer court.  And I suggest that we get Frodo Baggins on the job.  Problem solved.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html 

All that wealth...squandered

    After having returned back home to Berkeley last week, I assumed that I was finally finished with writing about Mexico City -- but apparently not.   

     One of the top images from there that still keeps popping into my brain, one that I apparently brought back home in my luggage, is a flashback to Mexico City's glorious main cathedral -- and that image still haunts me.  From floor to ceiling, it seemed like the whole place was garishly covered with gold.  Gold.  Gold everywhere you looked.  So now I feel compelled to write about that.

    All that wealth in just one single church.  Enough gold to keep me and all of my friends in riches for the rest of our lives.

    But the wealth in just this one cathedral represents only a minuscule fraction of the fabulous tons and tons of gold that Spain extracted from Latin America a few centuries ago -- so much gold.  Scrooge McDuck woulda gone nuts.

     But what actually happened to all that gold?  Did it make Spain rich?  Sure, for a while.  Spain used to be the richest nation on earth.  But then wars were declared and squabbling began and this and that happened -- and then suddenly all that wealth was gone, just gone.  https://www.amazon.com/Visions-Lost-Future-World-Stillwater/dp/1532803850/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

     Which reminds me of the vast wealth of another nation -- ours.  America also used to be the richest nation on earth.  Not any more.  First Franklin Roosevelt died and the Dulles brothers and Richard Nixon schemed their evil schemes to steal what they could from the New Deal.  https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Chessboard-Dulles-Americas-Government/dp/0062276174

      And what ever happened to all that gold in Fort Knox -- let alone all that gold in the Social Security slush fund.  And then 9-11 happened, the most evil scheme of them all -- and eleven trillion dollars in "war" blood-money suddenly began disappearing down this or that rat hole too.  https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/16/donald-trump-v-the-spooks/

     And now America, like Spain, is no longer the richest nation in the world.  What the freak happened?  This and that.  http://www.mintpressnews.com/genocide-in-yemen-media-complicit-in-us-saudi-war-crimes/224106/

      Mexico City still has its grand gold-encrusted cathedral to remind us tourists of what the power and glory of the old Spanish empire used to look like.  But we Americans don't even have something like that left to remind us -- except perhaps for the glaring monument of our gigantic national debt. 

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html

 

OMG: The churches of Mexico City

     Just how effective is the power of prayer?  For many of us who are poor and helpless, prayer is the only WMD that we can get our hands on.

     Prayer is our AK-47, our Uzi, our nuclear missile, our Glock.  It is the only defense that we have against the slings and arrows that are constantly aimed at our hearts by those more rich and powerful and brutal than we are.

     In Mexico City, the Sacred Heart of Jesus has become our bunker, our NORAD, our Marine Corps and even our numbered bank account in the Caymans.

     But are we -- the victims, the vulnerable, the unprotected, the powerless -- are we actually being armored and protected by prayer or is it just wistful thinking because we have nothing else?  Who knows.

     Are the poor and defenseless in places like Yemen, Ferguson, Honduras, Tibet, Syria, Ukraine, Standing Rock, Afghanistan, Gaza and Libya actually being protected by their prayers to Yahweh, Allah, God, Buddha, Shiva, the Great Spirit, etc.?

     Will my own heartfelt and constant prayers for world peace ever be answered?  Who the freak knows?  They haven't been so far.  However, realistically, do we who are the meek and wretched of the earth really have any other choice?

     And here in Mexico City, like everywhere else, the defenses of we the defenseless are limited too -- and yet here in both the grand cathedrals and the humble churches by the side of the road, the defenseless grandmothers and beggars and disabled and working stiffs and vulnerable salt of the earth all continue to pray.

PS:  Here's another thing that we clearly need to pray about: America's government!

     According to The Saker, a trustworthy political blog site, there is currently a huge clash of Titans going on far above our heads -- as the neo-con Deep State struggles to discredit, impeach, assassinate and/or eliminate (wait for it!) Donald J. Trump.  Any way that they can.  Apparently those guys really really really hate The Donald -- even more than the Left in America hates him.  And that's saying a lot.

     With regard to the phony intelligence document recently leaked by John McCain, The Saker warns us that, "After several rather lame false starts, the Neocons have now taken a step which can only be called a declaration of war against Donald Trump...  This is a political coup d’etat."

     But.  "If a coup is staged against Trump and some wannabe President à la Hillary or McCain gives the order to the National Guard or even the US Army to put down a local insurrection, we could see what we saw in Russia in 1991: a categorical refusal of the security services to shoot at their own people.  That is the biggest and ultimate danger for the Neocons: the risk that if they give the order to crack down on the population, the police, security and military services might simply refuse to take action." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46202.htm

PPS:  Let us also pray that the police, security services and National Guard in North Dakota finally refuse to take action against the brave Standing Rock protesters too.  http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/12/standing-rock-police-militarized-emergency-management-assistance-compact-north-dakota

     And also let us pray for the soggy and cold protesters on the much-raided "Poor Tour" in my hometown of Berkeley, CA.  They are protesting the criminalization of being homeless in America and need all the help they can get.  You don't have to go thousands of miles away to find something to pray for these days.  https://www.facebook.com/firsttheycameforthehomeless/

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html

Mexico City: Better than 11 trillion dollars!

     I have been totally surprised by the sheer awesomeness of Mexico City -- from a tourist's point of view.  It's got monuments and museums and antiquities that will knock your socks off.  Friendly people.  Great transportation.  And everything is cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap.  How can they do that?  Easy.  Mexico didn't just spend 11 trillion dollars on weapons of mass destruction like America has.

      Sure, this country has drug-war problems up in the north, in Sinaloa and Juarez.  But that doesn't seem to affect Mexico City.  And if America would just eliminate its so-called "War on Drugs" and make marijuana completely legal and cocaine and heroin as legal as Oxycontin, the Mexican drug wars would be over in a heartbeat.  Believe it.

      Here's me, basically a little old lady, walking the streets of downtown Mexico City after dark and being perfectly safe.  And the people are awesomely helpful and friendly.  Can we say any of that about most American cities?  What do you think?

     "But, Jane," you might ask, "exactly what are your favorite things to see?"  Crap, don't even get me started.  There's so much stuff!  The main cathedral is almost garish in its elaborate gold-leaf attempts to show off Spanish colonial power and wealth.  And in the plaza outside, some Aztec shaman guy did a ritual on me that was guaranteed to give me "power and respect".  Will let you know how that one turns out.

    The Museum of the Revolution is awesome!  That's how they do it down here -- bandoleers and trains and Villa and Zapata.  Father Hidalgo and Benito Juarez.  America's sleazy Deep State would have had to watch its back.

     Then there's Frieda Kahlu.  Her museum is truly inspiring.  She lived with so much physical pain that it drove her to become a great artist.  And even while almost on her deathbed, she still managed to attend a rally in protest of America having just brutally and illegally seized democratic Honduras (not for the first time either -- or for the last).

     And all that beauty and glory of Chapultepec Palace?  The Mexican branch of my familia took me there.  Those rulers lived high on the hog, as my mother used to say.  But where are they now?  Having spent all their money on wars of aggression and weapons of mass destruction, they had nothing left for upkeep of the palace.  The retro-colonial equivalent of 11 trillion dollars, all poured down the rat hole of conquest, greed and craziness.  Sound familiar?  Mexico's deja vu equivalent of America's current money-pit debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Honduras, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Africa, Haiti, Ukraine, Ferguson, Standing Rock, Berkeley (see footnote), the South China Sea, Sinaloa, etc.  But I digress. https://www.newcoldwar.org/whats-really-happening-syria-consumer-fraud-lawyers-mini-primer/

     The bottom line is that it's sunny and warm and wonderful down here in Mexico City, the people are friendly, the tourist attractions are some of the best in the world and the food is really good -- and cheap too.  What's not to like?  So buy your plane ticket right now and get your booty on down here.  Yes, I am talking to you.

Footnote:  According to activist Mike Lee, Berkeley's "Poor Tour" tent city, one that protests homelessness in America by trying to make it more visible, recently got raided by the City police.  At the cost to the City of approximately $30,000 per raid and after at least five of these brutal raids that I know of, that's $150,000 spent by the City to harass these protesters.  That wasted money could have purchased at least ten "tiny homes" for Berkeley's homeless.

      Berkeley has approximately 1,000 homeless residents right now.  America has approximately two million -- and the number is growing. You may be next.  http://www.dailycal.org/2016/10/31/old-bum-mayor-guy-mike-lee-focuses-berkeley-housing-issues/

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html

Privatization: A fancy new term for "Carpetbagger"

     I'm currently down here in Mexico City.  It is a fabulous paradise for tourists and yet I seem to have the entire city practically all to myself.  There are almost no American tourists clogging up all the awesome churches, museums, ruins, monuments and plazas down here.  Plus there are no drug wars down in Mexico City either.  Those rumors are false.  It's just me, having the time of my life.

     Hell, Mexico City is hecka lot safer than Washington DC.

     I'm not sure if the newspapers down here lie to their readers as much as the Washington Post lies to us.  Can't really tell.  My Spanish isn't all that good.  "Tacos" and "enchiladas" are just about the extent of my vocabulary.

     And speaking of vocabulary, I just went to the beautifully-ornate and regal central post office building down here and, no, Mexico hasn't "privatized" it yet -- unlike in America where our post offices have generally been sold off cheaply to the lowest bidder, as have our banks, our national parks, our military, our schools and God knows what all else.  Even our religions have been "privatized".  http://spnews.org/index.php/k2/item/269-reviewing-2016-unresolved-problems-american-individualism-in-crisis

     So I looked up the meaning of "privatization" in the dictionary and the word "carpetbagger" instantly leapt off the page.  http://www.nationofchange.org/2016/12/30/get-ready-assault-social-security-washington-2017/

      It doesn't take an expert on linguistics to predict that when the RepubliDems get done with their carpetbagging in Washington, within the next ten years or so America will have nothing left to sell or steal.  But, hey, you can always go visit Mexico City. 

PS:  I just started reading "The Devil's Chessboard," a biography of CIA spymaster Allen Dulles.  It is a horror story.  "Don't open that door!  Don't shower alone!"  The man was as evil is Hitler -- and twice as sketchy.  http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-the-cia-and-the-rise-of-americas-secret-government/5484565

     Now I'm gonna have nightmares for a month.  So much for light vacation reading.  The only good thing about this book is that it mentions my hero Peter Dale Scott in the preface as one of its sources.  https://www.amazon.com/War-Conspiracy-JFK-Deep-Politics/dp/1626360952/ref=la_B001IGJXJO_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1432267583&sr=1-2

     And all those lies and screams and chain saws and slashings and horrors started by Allen Dulles during the Eisenhower administration still continue to this day -- in places like Afghanistan, Honduras, Ukraine, Washington DC, Syria and, yes, even in Sinaloa.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html