Conspiracy theory 101

I'm not usually a conspiracy theory guy. I like real evidence. I like science and facts. I don't want to follow the innuendo to an end result and assume its true, but I've created a conspiracy theory of my own and its a whopper. To tell you about it I have to go back to the time when Candidate 45 fired James Comey.

Part 1 of my conspiracy theory assumes that when Candidate 45 fired James Comey, he learned a little life lesson from the heat he took. Not that I usually give 45 the credit to learn anything new, but it's an assumption that must be made in order for the rest to fall into place.

Part 2 is based on the fact that 45 was pretty darn upset at Jeff Sessions recusing himself from all things having to do with the Russian investigation. It almost seemed like at one point he would like to have replaced Sessions as well, but he didn't go straight for the jugular with Sessions like he did with Comey. This appears to be the first sign that he learned a little lesson.

Part 3 the Bannon exit. While Steve Bannon was apparently ousted from his position as chief strategist, I'm not convinced this wasn't actually part of a plan between 45 & Bannon to allow Bannon to be more effective at manipulating things and throwing certain politicians under the bus without putting pressure on the white house.

Now, there's suddenly a run off between the two republicans in Alabama for Jeff Sessions vacated Senate seat. On one hand you have the already appointed Luther Strange and on the other a somewhat dark horse candidate, Roy Moore, not in the sense that he was an unknown but in the sense that he leans towards what I call the dark side of conservatism. His opinions after all are a little scary.

Candidate 45 backed the incumbent Luther Starnge, but Bannon backed Roy Moore. A lot of 45's base are very much aligned with the opinions of Bannon. It almost seemed to me that 45 chose Strange to give the appearance of choosing someone safe and sane, while Bannon backed someone a little crazy (imnsho). In the end crazy won. So now the race moved on between the Crazy guy and the democrat.

Suddenly all of these women start making accusations of sexual harassment against Roy Moore. Moore denies it. Moore's wife meanwhile makes claims that she has some kind of proof that someone is paying these women to come forward. This is proof I haven't seen, but if it exists and if it's true... who might be willing to pay to have these women come forward, stories true or otherwise?

Now there's talk of a write in candidate to try to beat Moore, but who? Jeff Sessions name is floated out there. Sessions is very popular in Alabama and a lot of republicans don't want to vote for the democrat, but also don't want to vote for Moore if these accusations are true. So maybe Candidate 45 asks Sessions to vacate his AG seat and run as a write in for the Alabama seat for the good of the party.

Even if Sessions doesn't do this, if Moore wins there's already talk of the senate voting him out. In which case a new Senator would be named and that would also be an opportunity for 45 to suggest Sessions for the job. $5 gets rid of Sessions without firing him and gets to name a new AG, who will now get to limit the power of the special investigator Robert Meuller.

So A. is Bannon just doing his job to help set up a scenario where Sessions could legitimately be asked to fill a senate seat for the good of the party? And B. is 45 playing us all by first supporting Strange, almost knowing he wouldn't beat Moore and then setting up Moore for a hard fall from grace so he could move Sessions into the senate?

There's a lot of moving parts to all of this and to assume they could all have been orchestrated by the biggest buffoon I can think of (Candidate 45) is a little hard to believe, but with Bannon the master manipulator, it becomes a little more believable. And Bannon also has the resources to find these accusers and probably to even pay them, if in fact they were paid and didn't come out simply because they felt it was their duty.

I know it all sounds too crazy to be true, but sometimes crazy is exactly what is going on in front of our very eyes. Let me know what you think.

The Court of Public Opinion

So... now what of all of these accusations of sexual misbehavior among the powerful and elite or even the average Joe from Hollywood, Government, Professional Sports and the Military? It used to be that you were innocent until proven guilty, but something has changed. If a man or woman or if several come forward and accuse someone (usually a man) of sexual misconduct it seems they are immediately judged by the court of public opinion. I'm not defending any of these men and their behavior, but I am concerned at how quickly a career can be ruined without any due process.

In most of the cases we're currently hearing about, the accused have taken at least some ownership of their transgressions so I suppose that gives us the right to judge them without due process. But what happens if and when someone makes a false accusation and the accused denies it but its too late, we've all decided that it's probably true so lets hang him out to dry.

Have you ever found yourself in that kind of a scenario? I have. My second wife, as she decided she was pissed enough at me, filed a report with the police saying she feared for her life that I might physically hurt her. I was so apathetic that if she wanted to leave I was pretty much fine with it and I was ready for that change. It was a relationship going nowhere fast and I was only sticking around myself because of our 8 month old son. When she told me that she wasn't coming home and was staying at her aunt and uncle's place I told her fine.. I'll pack your clothes for you. You can come by and get them when you want them. We didn't have luggage or boxes to put them in so I used garbage bags. When the police showed up at my door to tell me I needed to move out of my parents duplex, (they lived on the other side) because she filed a restraining order against me and I wasn't allowed to be within 500 feet of her, they saw the garbage bags and that confirmed for them what  she told them... which was that I was going to throw out all of her clothes.

That's the short version of that story and I tell it as an example of someone lying to manipulate the system to her advantage. It happens. It will happen. And someone's career will be destroyed... at least for the short term and many will never believe that person didn't do whatever they are accused of, even if they are exonerated.

None of this is meant to excuse the behaviors of the many men who have in fact crossed certain lines that shouldn't be crossed. But I do wonder if this is just a unique moment in history where the tipping point of something so rampant requires us to take this more immediate action of shaming these men. Or is it the beginning of the end of the justice system as we know it? I certainly hope for the former.

If you haven't been watching the new Seth MacFarlane series, The Orville, then you've missed an episode that touches on this very topic of being judged by the court of public opinion. Season 1, Episode 7, Majority Rule. I highly recommend the series as each episode seems to involve some kind of social message despite the typical Seth MacFarlane humor. It's like Star Trek with a sense of humor.

UPDATE 11/17/17

I felt the need to add this updated comment here with a link to a post that touches on the very same concerns that I have as well as other similar concers and this is written much better than I write. I hope you'll take a moment to read it. You'll find it here on the Daily Beast, it's written by Erin Gloria Ryan.

What The Literal Eff?

There's so much going on in the world today it's hard to imagine that I don't have some topic that I want to talk about. Between candidate 45's trip to Asia, his ridiculous tweets, his unwillingness to believe our intelligence agencies on Russia's attempt to influence our election and that he believes Putin when he says they didn't. It seems to me like just more evidence that something stinks in Washington and Moscow. Not to mention the Mueller investigation seems to be picking up.

Then there are all these accusations of sexual misconduct throughout Hollywood and among our other institutions from which the powerful, rich and famous tend to cluster. Funny thing is, a single person can come forward and claim they were in some way sexually mistreated by an actor and that actor's career suddenly goes into a spiraling nose dive. But when candidate 45 was running for president 12 women came forward and there was the release of the infamous access Hollywood tape, where he admitted to treating women this way and said things I've never heard in a typical locker room, but no one came after him and it was all brushed off as locker room talk.

What the literal fuck is going on here? Is candidate 45 oozing some kind of pheromones that make 50% plus of the country swoon in his wonderfulness? Am I just immune to whatever it is he's spewing because of some kind of mental deficiency on my part? Are all of the people who voted for him still feeling that they elected the right guy? And how is it that we are all so disgusted with these actors and directors but we seem to have no contempt for candidate 45?

I'm not even getting into the weeds of how corrupt this administration seems to be to me, for the simple reason that I just can't stomach it. I'm sticking to the peripheral obvious stuff that would have been the end to any other candidacy prior.

And what of our conservative wing of government? The Mitch McConnells and Paul Ryans and the Lindsey Grahams and all their ilk. Are they so swollen with joy over finally being the party in charge that they would rather ignore the obvious blunders of candidate 45 than to call him out on them? I'm really only seeing the Maverick John McCain stay true to his conservative nature and hold the man to a higher standard as we all should.

I'm just plain stupefied at all of it and it's hard to write about... so that's why I haven't just jumped into it and written a blog post about it. Oh wait... I guess I sorta just did. Okay, so.. new blog post. Yeah!

What are all of your thoughts on the matter? I'd love to hear from you.

An invitation for potential disaster

As many of you already know, I started a new blog recently specific to my recent kidney transplant. What you may not have been aware of is this other blog that I had originally created a few years back, intended to be a catch all for the myriad thoughts I have, wacky ideas I like to discuss and general goings on of my world. I had sorta dropped it because it was too hard to keep up with due to the many challenges in my day to day. But now I'm reviving it if for no other reason than sometimes I just feel like talking about stuff.I'm not saying that I'll be posting daily or even weekly, but when I have something to say that's too much for facebook, this is where you'll find it.

If you want to be an active participant in this, feel free to ask me my thoughts on any topic and I'll do my best to give you an honest answer. On the other hand if you just want to be a passive voyeur... well welcome, I hope you enjoy whatever it is that ends up on these pages.

As far as I'm concerned nothing is taboo, the only thing I would ask is that you leave the kidney stuff for the other blog and try to have a sense of humor as most things I talk about, even when they're serious, I usually try to keep it light. That doesn't mean I won't occasionally fly off the handle in a passionate diatribe over something that pisses me off, but hopefully those times will be fewer than the fun topics.

Sadly I have no specific topics in mind for my first real blog post, so this is an invitation for you all to suggest a topic before I start landing on a few of my own.

Thanks... and welcome to Robots in the Paint. Don't forget to read the "about" page and the "image" page. And if you ever don't understand something I'm saying... double check the "glossary", I might have added a reference there for you.

Bil