“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” 

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Last 634 days, 15 hours, and 44 minutes, tick tock and the average Jo has no idea where to go, or what to read, who to watch. It’s all around, and everywhere, a journalist murdered here, rogue killers there, and voter suppression robs the many of their rights by a White House that could care less, set on undoing all that had made America believe they were some kind of white knight.

But, I’ll try to shed some light. Try. 

Turkish officials claim that fifteen Saudi officials, including a forensic expert, flew to Istanbul on two private jets on October 2nd, the day Khashoggi disappeared, and flew out after spending a few hours at the consulate and the consul’s residence. Four of the fifteen were close to the Saudi crown prince, the Times reported, on Tuesday. One of the men, Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, was photographed with M.B.S. during his U.S. tour, and in Paris and Madrid this spring. After nine hours of searching the consulate Monday, Turkey said it will also search the consul’s residence for “toxic materials.”The New Yorker

American exceptionalism is no more, as the despots of the world know that the current leader of the free world cares not a fart about, well, freedom of the press, for one. Commercialism is the only guide, profit share, and more Hotel’s rising from the ashes of corruption with his name attached.

“How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!” 

Thomas Jefferson

The U.S. has effectively lost much of its credibility, and the murder of Khashoggi, right in a consulate, well, it just seems to highlight the complete disregard, and apologist prez takes the Saudi Prince at his word? Rather absurd.  Personally, anyone who supports this man after this has sold their soul to whatever devil they fear. 

 He condemned criticism of the monarchy. “Here you go again with ‘You’re guilty until proven innocent,’” he told the Associated Press in an interview. “I don’t like that. We just went through that with Justice Kavanaugh and he was innocent all the way as far as I’m concerned. So we have to find out what happened.”
VOX

Which in and of itself is rather illuminating, that he somehow in his pea brain equates the death of a journalist at the hands of an authoritarian regime as akin to sexual assault allegations. Innocent until proven guilty does not really equate in the same way on the world stage, but I imagine the rumpTus isn’t all that interested, far more concerned about some still up in the air arms deal. Which again tells you how much he understands, which is very little, cause I doubt he generally listens to anyone but the imaginary friends in his head. However, this arms deal the rumpTus has been expounding on is by no means a done deal, and it would seem as though there have been some, um, entanglements. 

[…] the Saudis recently made a decision that put in danger the entire $110 billion weapons deal that Trump has been promoting since last year, because that deal wasn’t really a deal at all; it was actually a bunch of letters of intent and letters of interest, and now that the deadlines in some of those deals have come and gone, it’s become clear to the US that the Saudis aren’t going to buy all $110 billion in weapons that they had previously expressed interest in.” SputnikNews

Another little tidbit from that article that popped out, is Lockheed Martin is one of the major manufacturers, and apparently, there has been competition, as well as issues of quality,  and so this is not just about one dead journalist, there are a few more layers to that onion. 

The journalist also noted that Lockheed Martin was the single largest contributor to Graham’s re-election campaign, giving the incumbent $61,700 in 2014, according to Open Secrets.
 
[ and this little tidbit ]

that Khashoggi’s uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, “was a major weapons dealer in the 80s. He was very intimately involved with the Iran-Contra Affair, he donated heavily to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and he was deeply connected to Lockheed Martin,” she said, noting that Lockheed’s former vice president for marketing called Adnan “for all practical purposes a marketing arm of Lockheed Martin.”
IBID

Whose yacht do you think the rumpTus bought? If you guessed it was Adnan then….ding ding ding…we have a winner.  [FYI: that article has a vid of Trump on Letterman discussing it] Oh, what a tangled web we weave. What does that prove? Nada at the moment, but, PLOT TWIST;

[Adnan Khashoggi] Best known for his role as middleman in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, he also was the uncle of the late Dodi Al-Fayed, who was Princess Diana’s boyfriend when he was killed with her in a 1997 Paris car crash.
ANewDomain.net

Oh, and I guess back in the day he admitted that he feels guilty; can’t say as I detect that malady any longer. Course, these are different days and why bother pretending you give a shite when clear you don’t, right? 

“Um, you know, he spent probably $200 million dollars on building this yacht  … and it is probably the greatest yacht ever built.  I purchased it for a business … but I have a real problem using it personally, bc, a mental problem, using it personally, I feel guilty about it, if you want to know the truth.”
IBID

Yes, guilt is a mental problem. Got it. Guilty, cause he bought it from a major arms dealer? Yeah, whatever.
Just because he doesn’t read, guess he thinks no one else does either. But, I found out about this interesting connection a couple days ago when I found a vid from a few years back on a documentary about a model who became a pleasure wife of Adnan Khashoggi‘s back in the 80’s. If ya thinkin’ we are in OZ than it shouldn’t surprise you that they’ve signalled the despots and evil regimes that the days of the U.S. acting as the morality police internationally is dead, and it is not surprising that homegrown amorality would be rampant, and you’d be correct. Let’s just say that the GOP  is no longer dog whistlin’ ol’dixie, cause, why blawdy bother? WootWoot, the still angry minions cry,  “lock em up“. Yes, Virginia, these are scary scary times – or Georgia, North Dakota, gawd knows where else.  GOP seems to have gone full frontal corruption, with a confidence I guess that the White House will do absolutely nothing, the Supreme Court will overturn anything a lower court decides and, Bob’s your racist uncle, they can just drop the whole pretense of attempting to woo minority voters over to the dark side, because they don’t really want them anyhow.

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” 

Abraham Lincoln

Nope, that grand old party, it ain’t what it used to be, and they certainly are not giving two flying poopoos,  aren’t even bothering any longer with that song and dance, cause, like, it is just so annoying to have to act as though one gives a flying f-bomb about what anyone but white voters think, want, need. Oh, and white RICH voters especially, cause,  seriously, poor ones don’t spend money anyhow and frankly are just too easy to manipulate. They’ll drink the kool-aid, course they will, what else do they have? When you are living barely cheque to cheque your priorities are a bit, em, different, so they can just keep em poor and pandering for a job or hope, or anything that looks like hope, ya know, with one eye closed to the crap. Nope, instead, those goblins of profit decided this year to just wholesale suppress all of those pesky non-white folk. So this is a new reality – dislike what someone knows about you? Kill them. Don’t really give a shit what someone thinks, wants or needs? Ignore them. That’s basically where we are, there is no illusion any longer, this is what happens in a one-party regime, where the balance of power has shifted so far right that anyone who disagrees with them is just out of luck. November 6th cannot come soon enough. Maybe, just maybe, the many can take back their voice and scream at the top of their lungs ENOUGH! Of course, that is if they’re even allowed. 

“In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.” 

George Washington