Is The Phantom Menace Well Written? A Star Wars Essay

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in Movie Reviews, Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, Uncategorized

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anakin skywalker, best sci fi podcasts, best scifi podcasts, darth sidious, disney, Disney Star Wars, EFAP, Ewan McGregor, George lucas, jj abrams, Liam Neeson, Mauler, Movie Review, obi wan kenobi, Palpatine, Qui-gon, Rags, star wars, The Fandom menace, The Force, The Jedi, The Last Jedi, The OT, The Phantom Menace, the Prequel Trilogy. The PT, The Revenge of the Sith, The Sequel Trilogy, The Sith, what is the Fandom Menace

Recent online and Youtube debates have sprung up during Quarantine regarding comparing the different Star Wars trilogies. The Prequel Trilogy was beat up by fans and critics at the time, but views have softened. The truth is there really are three far worse Star Wars Chapter movies and one terrible origin movie out there. Only Rogue One has managed to work for Disney. Everything else we’ve gotten has been really bad.

While the Sequel Trilogy seems to draw universal condemnation; the Prequels are being reexamined.

Recently the EFAP youtube broadcast, (which I would call an amazing youtube follow) featured a sometimes heated debate about whether or not The Phantom Menace is well written.

To be fair, people are rightfully bored and we have time for it. Im reacting to their specific question “Is the Phantom Menace Well Written?” I now feel like it’s a little harder to answer than you think.

While a little acrimonious and no Rise of Skywalker Order 66 episode, it was still an amazing Star Wars discussion.

EFAP , Disney, The Real World and Me

The EFAP podcast on youtube is often brilliant. Listen to it. The Star Wars and film making discussions are probably PhD level. These guys know their stuff.

Full disclosure I buy in to much of what you hear on EFAP. Their views on how Disney has just botched all three of these movies they spent so much money on hold a lot of water.

On the other hand I also agree with the political views the Star Wars people are broadcasting, but not so much when I’m in the theater. There’s a real world waiting outside with all sorts of real problems. I don’t need to be lectured or validated by a Star Wars movie, even if I do agree politically.

Most likely I’m not on the same political page as the EFAP guys, who are mostly Brits. I share their feelings on Star Wars and that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I don’t know what else they believe.

As far as Star Wars goes I’m about 80% in agreement with EFAP personalities Mauler, The Critical Drinker, Shad and Rags.

Do the EFAP guys go hard after Disney? You don’t pick up a label like ‘The Fandom Menace’ for being soft. But hey these Sequel movies have pushed hard to be talked about. It’s the one thing they did well. Disney can’t control the conversation too. They uncorked four stinkers and this is what happens. Try making better movies, Disney!

Lastly, as a Progressive I simply resent my politics being fed back to me by of all people the jerks at Disney. They don’t practice these ideas in their corporate policies. I could give a shit about anything but entertainment when I’m in that theater to see Star Wars. So while geopolitical points or just the need to be on guard against oppression and protecting freedom work in Star Wars, anything more personal than that just doesn’t.

The Phantom Menace – Well Written or Not?

Is this movie Well Written? The short answer is “only sort of.” EFAP has a great policy regarding how to assess the movies. The big rule here is that the novels, video games and comic books don’t count. The movie has to work “out of the box.” Also, writing the movie for the writers is unacceptable, they’re the artists we’re viewers. The answers need to be on the screen. This really does put the movie in perspective for me. I was tired of people using it to excuse stuff anyway. At some point it becomes expensive, un-fun Star Wars homework.

Where to begin on whats bad about this movie? Well, there’s a few really bad characters like Jar Jar Binks. Jar Jar is the Rose Tico of the PT, fading into the background in subsequent films. Here he’s front and center and he’s a mess. Some found him offensive he may have been meant for much younger kids. He seems real enough and present though, more real than Leia in Rise of Skywalker.

We have some really terrible dialogue here and there. We have George Lucas directing and he seemingly never gets your best performance. He doesn’t care he’s going for your best Star Wars Performance.

Lucas has a complete vision and says everything he wants to say, but in accomplishing that he didn’t really entertain. A Pyrrhic Victory.

So its a totally Mixed Bag. Maybe the musical score is the best part. The plot in and of itself, is actually NOT terrible. Its sort of good. Lucas had pondered the three movie arc a long time.

The fact its a bad movie and still is somewhat well conceived complicates assessing it. Why leave Anakin’s mother in slavery when she’s spontaneously generating super powerful force users? This one is the worst loose end of all.

George Lucas was insulated from any real feedback at the time. There’s no real internet for him to get anonymous feedback from. I don’t think any person was able to say “hey George there’s some real problems here.”

I’m convinced the internet revolution and it taking on its present form grounded a newly anonymous Lucas online, where people would just unload on the movie and say what they wanted.

There’s a case to be made Attack of the Clones is a fairly good movie. It strongly departs from the stuff that killed TPM. Like reducing Jar Jar Binks role and pretty much saying so in the movie the moment we see him.

The Phantom Menace script needed doctoring it never got. I don’t know if it could have been totally saved but it was worse than it had to be for sure.

The pacing of the movie is slow all the way through. There’s flashes of excitement, but usually these moments happen while another plot point is unfolding at the same time.

The great light saber duel, for instance, is about five minutes strung out over maybe 20. It might even be 3 minutes of 15, I’m unsure. The point is like all other action scenes we’ve got plots unfolding with other characters. This time it doesn’t work.

Some of this sequence is so bad it’s ‘un-Star Wars-like’ if you can say that about a Lucas movie. “Lets try spinning, that’s a good move!” is some really bad dialogue that takes you right out of the movie.

The execution and direction are bad.

The acting is all over the place. Liam Neeson is okay but his greatest feat may be hiding how bummed out he is to be there. He mostly stays away from Star Wars after this.

Ewan McGregor, on the other hand does a great Alec Guinness imitation. He owns the role from here on but he doesn’t save the movie. He’s just not in it enough for one thing as the ensemble cast is all over the place to the point of some confusion.

Everyone else is just sort of okay. Natalie Portman is good enough in her really confusing role. She’s not to blame for any of the problems. Shes just beautiful wall paper in all three of these movies. Attack of the Clones is more Padme’s movie.

The use of CGI was cutting edge and not all of it holds up. Lucas is trying to do stuff. It’s just not working! He’s no Peter Jackson with the CGI at first.

Is It A Childrens Movie ?

Ok this time maybe the movie really was aimed at a slightly younger audience then the rest of the films. Is Lucas out of his element, aiming too low in age to hit the right beats? It would explain a lot. In fairness we never get a story this bad from George Lucas again.

Way back in 1997, when he was teasing the release, I remember George Lucas saying some elaborate stuff about how he viewed the Prequel Trilogy’s audience. It was fairly well thought out and all about building the fan base through appealing to six to ten year old’s instead of middle school kids with Episode 1.

He was pretty proud of this concept and later it becomes a shield against criticism with the whole “childrens movie about space wizards” defense apologists for JJ Abram’s make later.

The idea these movies are for children shows up around the release of this movie. Until then I just thought the Star Wars movies were for everyone, turns out I was wrong. So I guess I like children’s movies to a point. Perhaps we all do? The flaw in the excuse is that ‘these are some VIOLENT children’s movies.’ The adversaries had to mostly be robots or its an R for violence.

Lucas 3 movie concept on the Prequels was daring, The movies were meant to be more mature as they went on, ageing up with the audience. Whatever the case, it gets said out loud that at least sometimes the movies were for 12 or even 8 year old’s.

It seems believable when you look at the three movies as one long story. Attack of the Clones has its plot unpacked better and is a departure from Phantom Menace. It’s not as simplistic and unpopular characters get semi-shelved. Then Revenge of the Sith has a dark, violent and somewhat mature tone. Episode III sort of justifies the journey, but that’s another blog post.

This one time the children’s movie excuse might be applicable. This one time the movie actually really seems to be aimed at younger children. Maybe that’s why it kind of sucks.

Is the Movie Just Bad?

The Phantom Menace is definitely not a good movie. The complex plot is never fully unpacked. That seems to have been Lucas’ thing. He was good at getting you to instantly invest in characters. There’s only as much as you need but it holds up enough. The conflict is pretty clearly over money.

We never find out why Naboo is such a priority. A line or two could have fixed this. It could have had some rare commodity the Trade Federation wanted or just been conveniently located on the hyperspace routes. We never get that. Its a fair point against the movie being Well Written too.

Lucas boasted the idea dawned on him one day and he wrote the script fairly quicky, sometimes that shows in The Phantom Menace. His concept was around a long time, but he just fires off this script. It was the first time in a while and he’s rusty and possibly hard to advise. I doubt he redrafted it much. It seems like no one else was consulted.

In this movie Lucas is at his least successful in so many ways as a creator. The thing is he’s still better than most. His bad ideas are still overthought. He has a backstory and a reason for everything and he can spit out an answer on any aspect of his universe in most any interview. He’s wasn’t winging it, he just didn’t have the story refined enough.

Lucas is completely free to make any movie he wants and it will be funded. That cuts both ways in this movie and he owns the failure. It makes money and he doesn’t destroy his franchise, he just makes a bad Star Wars movie. The Studio didnt care, they just wanted their Star Wars movie after about 16 years of not having anything.

It was the franchises highest grossing movie. Lucas never rakes in more money but the criticisms are there. Having burnt off the Pent Up Demand the next movie had problems finding audiences by comnparison.

There’s real plot holes that got mentioned by EFAP and by people as far back as when the movie came out. The biggest issue is clearly “Why wouldn’t you break loose some cash and send a Jedi back to free Anakin’s mother from slavery?” That’s a problem that Lucas never addresses.

The journey through the center of Naboo was debated as unrealistic. On that point I just say “This is a Star Wars planet, its not even a Star Trek planet. You want to say the core is water? Okay.” That said, the sequence is a terrible mess. It’s not easy to tell who is doing what and why as we avoid a few too many monsters.

Lucas is not really mailing it in; but he has a bad day writing and directing. He gets the performances he wanted. They’re just not what everyone else wanted. The homage to serials was just too wooden in this movie. The expectations may have changed when it comes to acting styles from the release of the OT to the point this movie is made. The generation that grew up on serials was Lucas age. They weren’t running out to see it like they did in 1977. That generations grown kids were the target Lucas fails to appeal to. They were ready to follow him anywhere but this movie just kills Star Wars momentum for the entire prequel trilogy.

There’s a whole post to be made about how this movie is the moment so called “Head Canon” and Toxic Superfans start showing up. Who hasn’t had to sit through a lecture about how they need to throw 100 or so bucks into EU materials to walk into the theater? That’s just not a valid argument. The movie is supposed to simply make sense and entertain. I should be prepared enough when I fork over my twenty dollars.

One huge problem is Lucas has some dialogue and details from the Original Trilogy hemming him in a little. He tries to justify how a 10 year old can be a great pilot, but the solution is the Pod Race, which is only just so exciting and mostly played for laughs. It’s only kind of entertaining. Later when Lucas hits the ‘great pilot’ theme again during the fight on Naboo it doesn’t work either.

The final product has problems and is slow and boring. On the plus side- the damage is real but minimal to the franchise. It still feels like Star Wars, even with the warts. I could make a huge list of continuity and dialogue problems. I’ll mention just one – Theres some characters whose English accents just come and go. Notably Queen Amadala.

Lucas does sell his young Vader for the most part though. Its not a fun romp through the Galaxy Far Far Away, but its the Galaxy we liked for the most part.

The Force is explored to a point but the assumption is that you’ve seen the OT (and you have). There’s more powerful Force use on display, but just better, stronger versions of what we’ve seen for the most part. It’s logical enough a Jedi master would have more raw Force muscle than a glorified padwan like Luke is in Empire Strikes Back.

It’s just sort of boring, though. So the limited exposition about the nature of the Force is an issue as much as the clunky dialogue. They are issues that count against the movie being well written. It’s not poorly conceived though, it just doesn’t work out.

Viewed simply as the first of three prequels we can say we do get some more on the Force a little later. I myself also feel that some mystery surrounding the nature of the Force is good.

Directed with in a throwback fashion this only works just enough to be mostly coherent. Highlights are few and far between. A few more mistakes and it would have been awful.

You can’t say its Well Written but its not franchise-killing garbage. It’s a boring Star Wars movie and yes, overall its bad. Leave it to the Sequel Trilogy to make The Phantom Menace look like “the Good Old Days.”

Because the Prequels get better fast the movie has some fans. Its not Unwatchable.

My Verdict

Bad movie with a decent but poorly executed plot. Its only just so well written. Its an aberration among the six Lucas movies. I’m staking out a position in the middle. It’s the worst written Lucas Star Wars movie.

The movie has an idea of where it wants to go but still meanders. It’s slow for a movie that has a lot of conflict. Its too long and its got bad dialogue. The plot was only okay. It’s only written okay. Its NOT written outright bad. The story is clear but can be hard to follow as things unfold so slowly.

The plots is pretty good but the movie is sub-par. If being immersed in Lucas’ Galaxy is your thing you’ll enjoy some of it. It wasn’t the best but is no longer the worst Star Wars movie. It’s a below average movie and a below average Star Wars movie and a fairly bad movie in general. Its about a Two Stars out of Five kind of movie.

I dont know if saying it sets up the next two movies well is redeeming to this movie in and of itself. Its still not good.

In a word “Underwhelming.” I guess “It never completely falls apart and just keeps plodding along” is my one sentence summation of positives.

It’s a pretty bad movie, but there’s four that are much, much worse Star Wars movies out there now. Perversely, its now mediocre among Star Wars movies. Thanks, Disney. You Force Healed the Phantom Menace!

Here’s the EFAP Debate. This blog post is my theory, heres several others should you want to hear them.

Star Trek Picard Final Episode Reaction

28 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in Star Trek Picard Review, Uncategorized

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is star trek picard any good?, jj abrams, kelvin timeline, Star Trek, Star Trek Picard Review, Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Voyager

Well, we had an intriguing start but sadly Star Trek Picard falls apart and never gets it back together. I hope that it is discontinued, it’s not even Star Trek. I was more and more let down every episode. If they do go forward it’s pretty compromised but I guess it has some possibilities.

We know going in that Patrick Stewart’s skill is pretty high. This creates an expectation the script just never meets. It also makes it take a moment to realize that it’s all that bad once things really go sideways.

Over the course of the season its similar in tone and theme to Next Generation pilot Encounter at Farpoint; but much longer and slower. It feels like it was one long pilot. I have to hope it’s the end because it’s sub par.

It seems like this is it for The Next Generation. As a lifelong Star Trek fan I once again see a project and say; “We deserved better.”

The idea you would hate watch Star Trek is just unappealing. This Trek shows cynicism is forced. Its backward looking and sentimental.

Elder Abuse

One weird thing that I noticed about Star Trek Picard is that it’s almost completely unrelated to the Picard character. He’s along for the ride at best and even sort of in the way from time to time.

There are so many problems. The show’s title character not being that involved is just the tip of the iceberg.

He’s also not the guy we remember in any way. The character now has no charisma. Yelled at by all and sent to his room at one point in the first part of episode 10, he’s not in command of anything.

No one in this show really likes Picard, who is newly inconsistent. These two flaws extend to everything. Patrick Stewart seems to be more in a Professor X mode here. Where’s Hugh Jackman to inject more enthusiasm as Patrick plays a dying man?

Overall the new take on Picard is that he’s almost exactly C-3PO. Sort of scared, maybe mind-wiped. It’s like he’s never been in space.

There’s limited highlights to report after the 10 episodes.

The sexy new Romulan Villainess is gorgeous and wonderfully evil. Her needlessly complicated story is that shes part of a secret organization within a secret organization who hate all androids. I’m sorry did I say androids? They are now called Synthetics. DO NOT SAY THE ‘A’ WORD !!

The lowest moment of this series is a Synthetic Suicide that makes no sense and doesn’t really look cool.

We also just get bogged down in some bad references to the current state of the world….only they’re from back in 2019. The needlessly complicated story is related to things like Brexit and the US political atmosphere. That turned out to be a bad, deadline creating choice. We didn’t get the show until the expiration date was almost up.

Its too date specific and events have overtaken it already. So much for “Ripped from the Headlines” Star Trek. That’s supposedly a Law & Order concept anyway!

Some other inconsistencies are just unforced errors. For instance, back to Picard himself. He’s either well known or sort of obscure depending on the needs of that episodes story. While he’s supposedly a huge media laughing stock at the moment the show takes place; he’s still easily able to blend in with a preposterous costume and a leftover accent from some other, likely better project. And that’s in one of the less bad episodes.

When the best thing about your Star Trek show is that the actor from Voyager is good enough to somehow stitch together her newly inconsistent character you got problems. Red Alert! Just kidding, no one says things like Red Alert. Or Shields Up. Or Energize. Or Make it So. They say “Fuck You!” and “Weapons Hot!”

That said the cast is mostly good in these mediocre stories. Like I said, it makes it hard to believe the shows actually as bad as it is when the script just can’t deliver any substance.

It seems to me that the script was just too long and too boring.

There’s so many rabbit holes. Like some jammed in stuff with Riker and Troi we never asked for or needed. The episode is terrible and features actual rabbits. Space rabbits show up for I guess the first time since the Original Series.

We started out in a bad place – by mentioning the dreaded and hated Kelvin Timeline. Everyone flinched, but it seemed to be handled well early on. It ultimately wasn’t.

What seemed like some attempted damage control was really just a harbinger that lots of mediocre and outright bad Star Trek was to follow.

I was Dis-Engaged and bored a bunch of times on this pointless journey.

It’s hard to take but like I said earlier- Picard himself essentially ends up being C-3PO in this dull but well acted appendix to the The Next Generation. Anthony Daniels could have played this version of Picard though. He’s that weak and his intellectual estimations are that useless.

The last episode just doesn’t connect. It actually drags. Its boring when Picard dies. And when he Un-Dies its boring too. His new resurrected body is best explained as a dumbed down Replicant in almost every way. So he’s an android or a synth and even more like C-3PO!

Brent Spiner is okay but he cant at any point pull off the ageless android. De-Ageing Tech may have been better, but this mess looks costly enough. His other character in the series isn’t developed. There’s not much to go on as to why he develops, almost pulls off and then drops his super-genocidal plan. And everyone is okay with him and his planet of flake-y, sometimes murderous ‘synths.’ They just write it off and forget about the (idiotic) plan to help synthetic super beings kill all in intelligent organic beings in the entire galaxy. Pretty heavy. Couldn’t they have just have tried to kill some the crew and had a believable conflict instead of super genocide as their plan? Something they could be more easily forgiven for?

Killing everyone for no reason also feels like Plapatines plan in Rise of Skywalker.

Anger, shame and deep embarrassment over a life wasted watching Star Trek all compete for the forefront of my emotions. It’s still fresh. They gave me a “Rise of Skywalker” Star Trek project. In a couple of ways.

Diminishing Returns

Things got progressively weirder and dumber and less consistent every episode. We’ve never recovered from the series destroying visit to Troi and Riker. That episodes almost a bright line after which things are just completely thrown out of wack. Was there another episode they broke up and parceled out through the rest to cram that bad one in? Was it filmed later?

No later mention is really made about the things we hear from these unhappy and paranoid but somehow upbeat people. The episode is just a bridge too far, I wanted to like it, I really did. The continued story of Riker and Troi is almost joyless.

The way it works out Riker could have just shown up cold in episode 10 anyway. We didn’t need to know his life has simply sucked since the events of Star Trek Nemesis. He’s strangely unaffected by it.

In his appearance in episode 10, heading a substantial armada (after we hear the Federation is resource challenged). Its a weird series of events.

It’s hard to understand why he touts his ‘acting captain’ status to the Romulans. Seems to make him seem weaker in a moment where he needs to be strong. We can deal later with why he isn’t ‘Re-Activated Admiral’. Or why they put him in the not so cool and very identical and generic looking armadas strongest ship if he’s such a fossil.

Things that seemed destined for a (hopefully abandoned) season two start spiraling to a convenient end. Like a death for our Sexy Female Romulan Agent thats so similar to Kylo Ren’s Penultimate Death its reeking of JJ Abrams inspired incompetence, she’s just tossed into a chasm by 7.

And just like that she’s gone. We don’t see her die, and death just becomes irrelevant soon enough. Feels like a season one Bad Guy sort of death, surely the Big Bad is in the Future? Or maybe that’s the end? I guess the Big Bad is ill explained half Vulcan Romulan Admiral Oh?

When we do see Oh here and there advancing her bizarre anti-android agenda, shes vague, in fact she’s explained more in the episode synopsis CBS provides more than the show. Did they simply have to lose her story? Why is she the only person in the future who had cheap plastic sunglasses? She makes no sense.

By episode 10 Oh has deserted her deep cover job as head of Starfleet Security. Thats it, her decades long treachery is just right out there. Apparently she’s at Endgame for this droid killing mission thats thousands of years in the making.

We see her now as the Romulan Fleet commander. Its been a long haul for this character to get to this point. So much subterfuge, Shes in the perfect job to destroy the Federation, she was seeding in Romulan double agents at will!

But hey, turns out she’s not really that dedicated to her life’s work after all! She’s really not too hard to talk down. The cowardly Romulans simply run.

Meanwhile the Synth Race of Data-like robots and Sochi back down from their Evil Plan and pitch in to help the previously hated humans more or less on a whim. This episode and it’s ending just doesn’t add up; but we already crammed in one useless episode we have to justify.

These writers just hope seeing Picard again will be enough. The script is more “populated by events” then complete in its feel.

I started to think “It’s probably already been too long a journey.” Any goodwill and fan forgiveness is lost after terrible episode 3, which is simply bad.

At no point do we simply go to a planet because human beings are driven to explore. That would be too relatable. And this show has be just so different for some reason. Damn you JJ Abrams! We can’t shake your curse!

New showrunner Alex Kurtzman is best known for bad non sci-fi Hawaii-Fiveoh’s current bad iteration. They might as well have given it to Soap Opera writers. Kurtzman’s people are really bad when it comes to seeding their scripts with endless rabbit holes and outright contradictions.

Star Trek Discovery has the same show-killing problem, we’re only going for ridiculously high stakes here. Both shows plots culminate in the respective crews saving ALL LIFE EVERYWHERE. Let that sink in.

HOW IT GET SO BAD?

Throughout the too long season the mistakes and convenient plot devices start to pile up. By terrible episode 3 they’ve lapsed into very lazy writing.

The Final Frontiers ‘Tech’ is more or less the Force now; and I mean that in a Sequel Trilogy sort of way, so BAD BAD BAD! It now does whatever you need it to and is ill explained. Maybe calling it “Harry Potter Magic” is closer to how they use tech in this show.

‘The Tech’ is used to move the story along by letting Picard see previously unwitnessed things from DNA traces. Is that how DNA even works? The Irish Romulan seems confidant enough in it. DNA is still topical now, I guess. Sort of.

It feels like a stretch because it just is. The DNA scanner was an irrelevant, unneeded mistake. Just hot-wire the security log or something. It seems like it was just time to use a Magic Wand because they needed a “Star Trek Moment.”

Jeri Ryan is still pretty and wow, she is actually a good actress. Maybe I was too fascinated by her looks on so-so Voyager, where they spent a lot of time developing her character into something completely different from what we had here.

In this bad show shes got a full plate of bad lines and bullshit to spiel but she kind of pulls it off. Throw in some new Matrix-Like fighting skills that make sense and new personality traits that just don’t. Still, she delivers as best as anyone can with this.

So much for Searching for Positive Stuff. I’m not going to re-write or excuse plot holes for them. 7 of 9 makes no sense as presently constituted, but okay. lets move on.

The new ship sucks. Its non Federation and looks more or less like Eddie Van Halen’s most well known guitar.

The new captain, or more like the new number one, seems to be a really good actor. For Instance -The bad idea to have him have him play his entire crew isn’t developed that much, but he’s game in about 6 roles. I’d see him in a play based on this prolonged audition. So we got that.

Maybe the only good thing was we didn’t get anything from Deep Space 9. So your opinion of that show stays intact for good or ill.

It took exactly 2 episodes to start to pity Captain C-3PO….I mean Picard.

Everything just comes together in time to still get wrapped up too quickly despite taking forever to get to the end.

Don’t bother with this bad Star Trek show. The Final Episode of The Next Generation was a better end. It’s sad. Hopes were high going in.

Looking back its been a long haul with these characters.

This franchise was pretty much ONLY good as Episodic TV. In theater’s it was hit or miss. The movies end poorly. This show is just more badness and reminders that we’ve seen most of it done better before.

It’s not all that episodic and the themes it hits over the season aren’t that Star Trek-ish. Its got so much more co-opted Philip K Dick ideas than Gene Roddenberry stuff. While there was some overlap its just not overly compatible as a way to expand this Franchise they’ve inherited but aren’t stewarding well.

The final episode just fails in all sorts of ways. Its self important. It cant really pay anything off.

Picard even dies like C-3P0. In other words -briefly and temporarily.

The only good move for the future of the Franchise seems really unlikely now. The idea was out there for a second. It was – ‘Reboot the Next Generation with a new cast in a Quentin Tarantino movie where he gets to kill off as many of the Kelvin cast members as he wants in a great and plot hole closing story.’

This was really bad and may be the end of all Star Trek.

Maybe Star Trek started to die slowly when The Next Generation TV show wrapped. The further we get from Gene Roddenberry’s vision the worse we seem to do. Maybe enough is enough.

If I were an enterprising sci-fi writer I might seize this moment to advance my new franchise. It might be time to turn the page on Star Trek if we just can’t do it well …or even consistently mediocre.

If you get CBS All Access try the 1970’s Star Trek cartoon instead maybe. I’m cancelling my subscription as soon as I get over my anger at myself for getting it

Star Trek- Picard Reaction. Is Now the Time to Try CBS All Access ?

03 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in CBS ALL ACCESS, Star Trek Picard Review, Uncategorized

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ann magnuson, Brent Spiner, jj abrams, patrick stewart, Romulan Supernova, Star Trek, Star Trek Picard, Star Trek The Next Generation, The Hated Kelvin Timeline

Its been a rough 10 years for Star Trek. So much was lost in the horrible JJ Abrams experiment. Finally a product worth watching is out there. With an interesting first 2 episodes and seeming to be trending up ‘Star Trek – Picard’ is worth a few weeks of CBS Unlimited. As of episode 2 its shown some real Star Trek possibilities while also being one of the smoother pilots in franchise history.

The Picard Show DOES have one aspect seen in the Hated Kelvin Timeline. There was a Romulan Supernova in this timeline as well. It’s canon, it happened. The scale has been reduced as the Red Matter simply was more effective on this side of the timeline. However it was a big enough deal to take out the Romulan Solar system and wrecks their Empire.

The Romulans had always seemed the more devious adversary, and you’d think theyd be so invested in other systems that they could lose even their best system and still be okay.

That said, the repercussions seem to be confined to that. The Romulan’s lost their solar system and apparently their Empire collapsed too. Supposing the supernova was enough to at least wreck the economies of the surrounding area maybe the Romulans do get sort of cored out.

In episode 1 we find out most Romulans became refugees in a noble but highly unpopular rescue operation championed and coordinated by Picard. The Romulan Diaspora seems to have taken away none of their duplicity though.

Romulans being Romulans the rescue only went just so well. It tore at the fabric of Star Fleet and almost tore the Federation apart. And of course the Romulan’s were only just so grateful. Some love Picard, and some are ready to kill him. So the Romulan’s mostly still act like Romulan’s. They also seem to have some kind of coordination or agency working on their behalf and have possibly infiltrated Star Fleet Intel. We’re awaiting some key information there, but it sure looks that way

In other depressing future news, it seems androids of all types are now banned and Picard is the one champion of the noble, but highly unpopular idea that the lives of certain androids are in fact equal to those of humans. This view was never really popular in the Federation, and after the Borg pull off a decent attempt to Assimilate all humanity in Star Trek Fist Contact, the disdain for androids is well set up.

Now former Admiral Picard has left Star Fleet. He disagreed with its increasing militarism in the wake of a Pearl Harbor-like attack by ‘synthetics’ that destroys Utopia Planetia Shipyards and killed a lot of people. Seems the nihilistic Romulans have had a hand in it. We find out later from Admiral Clancy that this has left Star Fleet short of ships and resources. Mars is a mess. The problem still hasn’t been cleared up. One thing I did verify was that the entire fleet of rescue ships they used to help out the Romulans was there when the attack was carried out by apparently hacked and totally suicidal synthetics.

Episode One shows us some very enjoyable sequences of Picard’s beautiful french manor house where he’s kind of gone hermit to a degree, but has several causes he is championing as a private citizen.

We find out there is mass media and that people are pretty interested in what a former Galaxy Class Starship captain’s views would be.

In a nod to today’s atmosphere Picard is set up and slammed by a sort of intolerant Media operation in an interview gone wrong. Whether the interview was always an ambush or Picard really is just a bit too naive is left up to you. The truth seems somewhere in the middle.

The Hack Attack on Utopia Planetia and a nebulous media reflect right back on modern society like good Star Trek Should. So it’s doing Star Trek things right away by shining a light on what’s going on in the real world at the time its created, in this case that the media can be biased and the various Federation races can still be petty and factional.

The crux of the story revolves around some very Philip K Dick-like Replicant-type androids and what exactly is being done with a half destroyed BORG Cube that’s still lingering , wherever it is. Whats left of the Romulans have some access to it as well as regular Federation scientists.

Picard, a known humanitarian and something of a black sheep celebrity, naturally draws the competing forces to himself in a convincing and believable way. It’s not forced.Nothings been jammed in. The story lines unify nicely. These are the sort of things Jean-Luc Picard was always about

None of the stink of the JJ Abrams era really affects this show.

We have some big time baddies in the form of the jerk Romulans and their constant aggressive militarism and the man who still wants to save them anyway. It took a couple of views to figure it out, but the Romulan assassins all seem to have cool new and very Romulan weapon, a mean spirited and super evil “Take Them with You” suicide pill (implanted in their teeth?) that allow them to spit acid as they die. Such a Romulan thing to do They’re still mostly a bunch of heels!

The cast is up to it. With Patrick Stewart firmly in the center the show has no problems. Unlike terrible Star Trek Discovery this show has familiar warmth and people show concern for each other.

In Episode 2 Admiral Picard gets a dose of reality along with the audience. Star Fleet C in C Admiral Clancy is well played by Ann Magnuson. While seemingly hostile to Picard, this character seems likely to warm up to the old Admiral. Right now though, Picard is officially NOT a Star Fleet officer of any kind. In fact, maybe he should stay 1500 feet away from any Starfleet installations for awhile!

It’s now that Clancy also reveals the media wasn’t kidding in his poorly received interview. Things on Mars are still just horrible, as a result they’re hard up for ships and they can’t really do diplomacy in the wake of the Romulan Supernova. So while the media was confrontational to Picard he had some guilt, delusions or coping mechanisms of his own about the Mars attack.

This is a huge moment. So many revelations are dropped. Star Fleet’s hard up? The Federation isn’t engaging diplomatically? It’s on point for BREXIT and the American withdrawal from the world stage without hammering it home awkwardly. Again, it’s good Star Trek.

Then Picard gets a really bad but mostly unexplained medical diagnosis from someone who isn’t Dr Crusher. He only has just so much time left as we find out in effective and appropriately Star Trek-like style. He views his newly limited mortality as just one more fact, albeit an unpleasant one.

He’s pretty clear how he dies is nowhere near as important as finishing his life’s work before whatever it is catches up to him. It would seem to line up with what we saw of an elderly Picard in the final episode of Star Trek The Next Generation. So at least some continuity is being preserved so far. It should be kept in mind though the elderly Picard in “All Good Things” was in a hypothetical future generated by The Q entity, whose probably just too powerful and campy to show up in this, the most serious Star Trek show yet.

Just so we know for sure that Picard may not want to live on a whole lot longer, his doctor warns him against going back into Space, but then admits getting killed may be better than the disease. So whatever it is 24th Century doctors are afraid of it.

Two hours in the plot is increasingly complex but unfolding nicely and makes sense. We can see why Picard has all of these intense traits and how he would be so interested in the things that are driving him. Unlike EVERY other Star Trek show this project assumes the fans are fairly smart and doesnt try to re-invent Star Trek on the assumption its somehow bad in the first place. Roddenberry’s vision is more or less intact. This is the Star Trek you remember.

Maybe the best part is the show slows down and develops things rather than showering us with the substance and plot-free Abrams material. It’s a much batter show than Discovery (which I may now bring myself to watch).

Again, all signs in the first two episodes are GOOD. Patrick Stewart reprises the role perfectly. He’s the guy we loved. The story is not episodic but still so far seems to be really good. The new themes are longer looks at things we’ve touched on before. The very Philip K Dick theme of Androids who are very much biological with android minds, whether or not they have a humanity of their own. We have some great episodes regarding AI and androids. This deeper dive on the topic is very much in tradition of The Next Generation. The Borg are still a Roddenberry creation and effectively menacing. Nothing good is gonna happen on that Cube, even if it has been 16 years since it last posed an issue per the sign inside regarding assimilation’s.

So with the make or break third date/ episode about to drop it seems that NOW is the time to pick up CBS Unlimited. If you wait until after Thursday you can see all the way up Episode 4 on your free trial.

Do yourself a favor and go with the “With Commercials” option. Its the way youre used to seeing this kind of TV anyway.

This show is good and it’s definitely time to try it out for a few episodes. Its seems to be trending up. As good as the Mandalorian. I truly approve.

Skipping Rise of Skywalker was the Start of Fan Rebellion Against Disney

26 Sunday Jan 2020

Posted by therealmcteag in Disney Star Wars, jj abrams, Uncategorized

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baby yoda, Carrie Fisher, DC, DC Universe doomed by JJ Abrams, EFAP, episode 9, Humour, jj abrams serial killer, kelvin timeline, Kylo Ben, luke skywalkers lightsaber, Mauler, mystery box, Palpatine, rian johnson disaster, sci-fi, solo movie, Star Trek, Star Trek Picard, star wars, star wars movie fails, Star Wars the Last Jedi, star wars the rise of skywalker, the force awakens, thelast jedi awful

Well, howd y’all like that Episode 9? The lowest rated Star Wars Movie of all time is still slipping on Rotten Tomatoes. I dont think its going to stabilize anytime soon. JJ Abrams is now a Serial Killer of Sci-Fi franchises.

Let’s look at the Wake of Destruction he hath wrought.

For Starters; thanks to JJ Abrams 7 years after was basically run off the Final Frontier Star Trek is still reeling and very much needs the Picard show to work out or that might just be it.

Devastatingly bad ideas like the hated Kelvin Timeline are still just tying the hands of the creatives. Bad Star Trek Discovery is losing a plagiarism suit to a video game and it shows. File that bad show under “not good enough for regular TV” Its bad Star Trek and bad TV. Hopefully they can abandon the Discovery ship out some plot friendly back door? I would suggest “They were ALWAYS from another Dimension” or “They’re ONLY from the Hated Kelvin Timeline”? Just brainstorming.

Why listen to me I’m just the guy who championed Rey being a clone made from LUKE’S SEVERED HAND! Something Palpatine would have been able to get! It’s better than anything about her we got from JJ Abrams in these movies at any time.

Seriously I’m just gonna say it; the Luke’s hand idea is better than all three JJ Abram’s origin stories on Overpowered Rey. Okay, its fan fiction, but the movies awful and its just to prove it didnt have to be. We just filled in one HUGE plot hole problem using what they call creativity. JJ Abrams is supposed to be great at this? Why’s he losing a brainstorming contest to a blogger?

First of all the story starts elsewhere. Yup, the movie starts with a reveal in the blurb that fans of Fortnite already knew. Old Palpy is alive?! It’s such a bad idea maybe people wrote it off as a little canon fun, but NO! A video game starts the story.

JJ Abrams unspools the plot of the movie in a shock reveal in a video game. Yup. And if you didn’t play that game he sort of think’s you came in unprepared. Abrams is that dick professor who kicked you out of class as an example to others.

So if you ‘cheap-ed out’ or didn’t finish the game here’s the deal – despite being dropped a few miles and being blown up twice, the Emperor is back. Don’t bother thinking too much about it, its never explained. Like so much else in these Sequel Movies things just happen.

So far since Disney took over and hired him JJ’s been destroying Star Wars. I was stunned how badly he did. I mean, I knew he would fail, but WOW!

I can hold my head up knowing I didn’t waste my money on this Rise of Skywalker turd. Sure it made its Billion Dollars, but it took longer than the other movies to hit the number. The reviews weren’t mixed, they were excoriating. Still, for a day or two the fan score held out on Rotten Tomatoes, then it just collapsed. What went wrong? It was JJ Abrams and his half-assed Star Wars vision…or should say lack of vision?

Disney has made five of these Star Wars movies and only one is good in the form of Rogue One. Solo is at best mediocre and its poor box office take really upped the pressure for Episode 9 to be great. Wow did that ever not work out.

Star Wars is supposed to be about Rebelling against an Evil Empire, not submitting to one! It’s that simple. In this case, the Evil Empire is Disney. Darth Abrams was a bad choice from the word go. The signs were there but people ignored them

JJ Abrams – The Man Who Kills Franchises

The problem is JJ Abrams can only write beginnings, and even then only by creating issues he cant fix because hes simply not that creative. Abrams being stuck in his schematic “Mystery Box Method” of always doing a shock reveal and the endless lens flare just gets old fast. He’s incorrigible.

He’d failed to end the show LOST acceptably and made perhaps the most anger generating final episode ever. There’s a reason LOST isn’t in re-runs. It was all false canon and zero pay off. It might be the worst series ending of all time. But people convinced themselves he was David Lynch. He’s so not.

Then one bad movie revealed all and the failures have pretty much always gone down the same way.

JJ Abrams created a movie so bad that it exonerated every other Star Trek writer or director in TV or film to that time. We’re talking all time low. The Rise of Skywalker implodes almost the same way. A quick look back at JJ Abram’s recent work in Sci-Fi is informative.

Only 10 years ago he was the New and Forever Star Trek Creator. It was a marriage made in Hell. Movie one was surprisingly good. It seemed like we’d be okay. At first glance it was a lot better than Force Awakens. Then he very quickly falls off a cliff.

Awful sequel Star Trek Into Darkness was just a disaster. The word tropes started getting thrown around. If we unpacked it, really its just another one of his high stakes movies where the bad guy has a Death Star like weapon. He lied to the fans to make the story pop more, and fans hated the movie.

Rhymin’ and Stealin’ – How JJ Abrams Movies Implode

From the false flag pre movie rumors and outright lies in the early pre publicity right up to the botched rollout, Star Trek Into Darkness was a heap of shit you knew wasn’t going to work! Abrams sort of ends up telling people they watched his movie wrong while also saying he actually did blow a few scenes in the movie in the publicity leading up to the release. He apologized for inartful jamming in an exploitive scene of a woman getting undressed in front of Kirk. He was right, its done like shit. This starts the trend of JJ’s movies falling apart after a half hour and then being somewhat worse as every increment of 10 minutes goes by til the movie finally just stops (rather than ends).

It’s also maybe the first time he kills and then un-kills a beloved key character using a plot device that just wasn’t given enough attention to seem viable. Basically a Supersoldier Blood Infusion to bring back a dead Kirk. Anything out there in pop culture is fair game. Let’s call it the start of shamelessly stealing from Marvel too (more recently Rise of Skywalker re-used the end of Avengers-Endgame).

Benedict Cumberbatch’s career faltered momentarily and he needed to stay out of America til the stench cleared. For a minute there it really looked like he didn’t know how to act. Cumberbatch has since more than redeemed himself. We know now it was bad dialogue and bad direction. And a movie with an introduced that just needed to go somewhere. Like even just some planet, do some Star Trek stuff, and fails miserably.

Around the same time people starting listening to JJ’s insulting commentary on his first Star Trek movies special edition back when DVDs were all the rage. Let me tell you no one can make their own work seem so bland and undercut their authenticity better than Abrams.

At some point he’s maybe drunk or stoned or something and riffing on his movie. There’s an accidental admission that his first Star Trek just didn’t work at all. The he lets go it had a lot of cut scenes (which we saw) and that they’d gotten lost in a couple of rabbit holes. This only makes you wish the movie had gone in a different direction. Moreover the left out ideas seem really interesting. Still, the movies pretty good and the franchise seem set up.

The JJ Uncorks a wild one- while discussing the “Angry Future Romulan’s” it becomes obvious a lot of writing happened post filming and it seemed three Star Trek projects leading in different directions were unified by a few lines enabling dialogue and a genius editor. What role CGI played I can’t say but the approach being ad hoc is out there

It was also just unsettling to hear. Sounded a little bit like maybe he just got lucky. Now we know that’s actually what happened. The movies one long introduction anyway, so it was deceptively good. The guy writes good beginnings, but then he can’rt advance without all sorts of canon destroying parent killing trope-y-ness.

Scapegoating Fans

In interviews JJ always seemed to be passively aggressively attacking the fans. I lost count of how many times he criticized the original show or anyone who’d be so dumb as to watch it. I guess because Felicity was available on DVD? I can’t figure him out; I can only forecast his movies by low-balling everything and assuming he’ll miss the mark. This is simplistic, I know, but it has worked. Its worked for essentially 5 straight movies where he’s head creative. Why should he get a break for The Last Jedi? He was in charge, he was too into his 2 years off to care and when he paid attention again Star Wars was seriously fucked up.

JJ’s basic schtick was – I fixed your lousy Star Trek.

Soon he was gone from the franchise. These traits were well out there though and he gets the Star Wars gig.

The Destruction of Star Wars

All JJ Abrams problems would be even worse when he got to Star Wars. Out of control parent killing. Having it both ways on killing characters by ping-ponging from life to death in a flimsily explained way. Fleeing in shuttles, over and over. Crashing your ship into an enemy ship. Bad Guys with some kind of Death Star Variant. Lying to the fans trying to make the movie pop more. Failing to pay off story elements (Luke’s lightsaber’s journey from Bespin to Rey’s hands?) and lots of false canon.

Firstly, to most fans, it wasn’t that badly broken. Turning Kirk into Indiana Jones and boasting about it made Kirk predictable. You knew from Indy that “When he fights doesn’t so much win as gets lucky because he can take a beating” and all the other traits were there too.

At this point JJ had double dipped by both angering the Star Trek fans and signing with Disney and he was pretty much on his way out to go and destroy Star Wars. While we now know its because he cant write, at the time it seemed like he was trying to kill the Star Trek franchise.

A few humiliating TED Talks about the schematic nature of his film making gave away way too much. And it’s now obvious he just has no plan. Its probably why they bought in a different director and writer to write a middle for the series.

At this point some of us realize the movies are just getting worse. And the amount of homework we have to do to understand whats going on starts to really go up and become a boring grind.

Others bash Rise of Skywalker better than I ever can, but we all know that all through this Sequel Trilogy they’ve treated the original characters with great disrespect. Carrie Fisher had to die to be treated respectfully and by then only so much could be fixed. So we wont dwell on the problems Carrie passing caused. There’s no need. There’s plenty else wrong with this movie.

It’s a Fetch-Quest Video game like The Division. Except not as engaging. Thrown together with the highlight being Babu Frick and Power Ranger Felicity. Keri Russell will make a fortune and possibly was on set 3 hours. Its all a joke to JJ!

Soft Death scenes and what seem like true losses of characters are just bought back with little explanation or a bad explanation.

Now we have an insanely bad Star Wars movie I was able to watch online with a few slick moves. EFAP and Mauler on youtube have a combined 14 hours of podcast on just what a disaster The Rise of Skywalker is. One thing’s for sure Star Wars Stockholm Syndrome, while real, was broken to pieces. No amount of fanciful justifications will ever make people see one of these if the trailer is bad again.

Just because the real world is a mess is our escape from the real world to be a mess as well? I wont pay for this until the quality is there. That means 8 weeks of Disney Plus a year to watch the baby Yoda Show at this point.

JOIN THE REBELLION! If you saw this movie dont see it again! And dont stream it! that’s just rewarding Disney and they’ve taken that as a licence.

The Last Jedi brutally woke us up to the fact no one had clue how to write this stuff and the Lucas dialogue is now sounding a lot better. Seriously we have that much fail here

That JJ was too lazy or damaged to bother giving us a movie that made sense and since The Last Jedi had already shattered some canon Abrams had a blank check to fail. So he did. Every bad thing we heard made it into the movie.

One things his Star Wars movie did at the end was unite the fans in anger.

From Palpatine’s horrible military plan built around shock reveals, to trying to un-do Rian Johnson’s failed vision of an old, cowardly, grumpy failed child murderer Luke Skywalker, nothing worked. Throw in some really bad continuity issues for fun too.

So we got action instead of substance. We’ve got lots of things jammed in together quickly. Like all our heros in one place at the same time. For the first time in this series. At least it was on the Falcon!

Who are these new characters and is anyone else upset they were named Zora and Zaina but were unrelated? Not too creative.

Tales of a better cut of the movie abound. The amount of cognitive dissonance it takes to believe Disney killed the movie or had some kind of hard cap on run time is preposterous. An excellent movie could have flirted with three hours. The idea this horrible movie that makes no sense was made in spite of better product is ridiculous.

He will say we watched it wrong soon. We weren’t wrong, it was the same ending as the Avengers Endgame, just done badly this time.

So much was lost in the shuffle. The preposterous and unexplained journey of Luke Skywalker’s light saber from Bespin to Rey is a novel few will pony up for, and just one of many pay offs that this trilogy fails to deliver.

If your name is JJ Abrams the only price you pay for failure is critical blog posts and youtube content providers killing you. He’s off to destroy DC. It’s a mind blowing end to a contract that probably just should have just been given to Peter Jackson.

I was right. This movie is a streaming rental.

So while the Baby Yoda show seems to be promising, it seems the Marvel People will now get what’s left of Star Wars, and really, its for the best.

Pour yourselves a drink Star Wars fans, JJ Abrams is gone. Now dont be an idiot and pay another hundred bucks to buy the comics and novels they will crank out to try to un-fuck this turd. There should be a price for failure.

If you go out there buying the new merchandise and help them to a point where THIS movie is a success? The movies will keep getting worse.

I’m Not Seeing The Rise of Skywalker and Neither Should You!

20 Friday Dec 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Disney Star Wars, star wars,, The Rise of Skywalker, Uncategorized

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Bad Trailers and Two Bad Sequel Prequels Point to Bad Movie

Sadly, we have been down the road of Bad Star Wars movies, especially since Disney took over, too many times. At every step of the way the sacred trust and love people have for the movies prevent you from getting any read on a movie you’ve seen 10 out of context minutes of in all sorts of commercials already. From candy to cars, Star Wars sells it all.

Right now an early, spoiler-y but terrible review has emerged from GQ which kills the movie; starting with it’s really bad re-introduction of Palpatine. Here’s a quick quote that sums up what sounds awful –

The “return” of Palpatine could easily turn out to be some clever scheme by some unknown villain, who hopes gain power by drafting on the reputation of the terrifying emperor.

And then, just a minute or two later, Kylo Ren comes face-to-face with Emperor Palpatine himself—very much alive, thank you—and Rise of Skywalker starts digging a hole it never finds a way to climb out from.

This damning piece of information, which shows nothing was learned from the (Horrible) Solo Movie Easter Egg as far as being unexplained and bad, seems pretty movie-killing just on its own. Its apparently right up front and there was worse in there.

The Phantom Menace Paradox

My warning here probably won’t stop anyone either, because Star Wars Stockholm Syndrome is REAL! People sympathize with anything slapped with the Star Wars logo.

How bad is it? Well, The Phantom Menace was the biggest grossing of the Lucas made movies. So, in a sense there’s no way to measure how good the movie is. That Phantom Menace defied the few realistic but much shared bad reviews and scathing word of mouth to be the most lucrative Star Wars Movie clouded peoples judgement. The malignant concept “now they’re Bomb Proof” was born. Fortunately the prequels got better fast, but the Box Office, while still great, was a bit down after Phantom Menace initially tarnishes the concept. even though it takes til home video for anger to really emerge.

In contrast; near perfect movie Revenge of the Sith had a sort of disappointing box office. It wasn’t really about the movie, which, again, is really good. People were tired of Star Wars by this point. Some people had hated both the previous movies. Also at that point, with all the video and re-releases, they had flooded the market. These things as well as being the only R rated Star Wars movie made it a cautionary box office tale compared to the inferior film, Phantom Menace. Another bad precedent was set.

NOTE-Revenge of the Sith is slowly redeeming itself because there’s just a lot worse Star Wars movies out there. It had mixed reviews and was somewhat overlooked initially, but that’s another post.

But the idea a truly bad Star Wars movie was still going to do great financially was out there and it was just too intoxicating. Crank out the movies and merch and stay away from what made Return of the Sith great was sort of built into the game plan.

Disney seems to have taken this as a license of sorts. They know the movies can’t truly fail (or so we still think), so what difference does it make if it could be better so long as it opens on time? Sort of like “Its crazy to own an Orange Grove and not plant oranges in orange season.” They paid out the nose for this and they built a theme park around it that costs a fortune to go to.

No one believes they’re ever going to slow down the franchise until they can make, you know, decent movies. They just want their holiday Skywalker franchise and their summer Star Wars Stories to open on time. After all, a lengthy delay didn’t help SOLO, which wasn’t even the best Sci-Fi movie with a Paul Bettany Death Scene in theaters that week (That would have been Avengers: Infinity Wars).

Critics have finally found some courage since the disaster that was The Last Jedi and the lackluster “Solo” movie that just felt like what many said it was- a wikipedia page on screen. So while Rogue One was an amazing view, the other three movies from the JJ Abrams crew up to now are bad or even awful.

The Curious Curse of Hiring JJ Abrams

While some people might be more forgiving, JJ Abrams will always be the guy who gave us the worst series ending of all time with LOST way back in the day. A seed was planted – JJ Abrams can only wrote beginnings. Nothing since then has disproved it.

Abrams romp through the Star Trek Universe left it so messed up things are still not really together a decade later! Chances Quentin Tarantino directs a Star Trek movie are far from high and seeming to drop weekly. The two TV shows, one bad, one yet to be seen, won’t be on regular TV but a streaming pay service from CBS. In the case of Discovery, season one wasn’t good enough for TV. The other show, Picard, appears to exist outside the so called “Kelvin Timeline” people so hate, so it may be good.

The truth is JJ Abrams is a Tropey, check off the boxes and terribly safe writer on the Star Wars movies. He’s mistake prone and creates boring enemy ships and aliens. The formula when Abrams is writing is schematic and transactional, never, ever missing a merchandising plug. Grasping at any plot device to advance from one “Star Wars Moment” to the next, we get from point A to point B in the most predictable way possible most every time.

For example- Is it really plausible Finn and Po are close friends because for 3 minutes they attempted to escape the First Order together? Consider for a moment how brief and frenetic their meeting actually is. No effort was made to really give them the kind of time together it takes to sell a buddy connection. It’s simply bad storytelling. It’s okay, you didn’t watch it wrong, it really is bad.

So the clunkiness and the impersonal nature of the heroes compounds to the point you’re just waiting for something to happen or the movie to end. JJ Abrams didn’t invest emotionally in these characters, why should we? Because he talked us out of about 18 bucks? Because getting conned sucks? I don’t know but people seem to never attack the movie without throwing some justification in there too. In this case it’s “worth it so see the end of the franchise no matter how good or bad.” It’s a cult in some ways.

Back to the new character. The fact that BB-88 is one the most popular and relatable characters says something. Non verbal and usually pure slapstick. He’s a break from the lack of substance because a droid bouncing off the walls during a space dogfight was funny and didn’t go on too long. The other characters? Maybe the fact they ARE verbal hurts? Dialogue has never been great in Star Wars, but these Disney movies feature some of the blandest techno-babble ever.

McTeag’s Law of New Star Wars Movies

The Rule seems to be ‘The further they get from Lucas material the worse the movie.’

Selling Out to Sell Toys

Who among us will ever forget the Disney lowpoint with C-3PO pointlessly mentioning his red arm? Out of context and needless. It was just there to visually (and financially) differentiate the Toy income stream. It differentiates the C-3PO toys Disney and Abrams gets more of than the ones that are more like the Lucas version, which Lucas gets more of the money from.

These movies have some of the worst toy connections ever, probably because the ships and creatures aren’t that good so they have to be pushed hard. And really, it’s only just so great compared to the Lucas conceived stuff.

At this point I have to note -JJ Abrams is also a bad toy developer, which in these movies, really hurts. The stuff he outright inherited from Lucas is amazing and we love stuff like Han’s blaster, Luke’s lightsaber and the sounds they made when primed, when fired and the level of damage they did to a target. In contrast Abram’s gave us things like Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, which angered and confused fans with its ‘self amputating’ looking crossguard.

The elephant in the room is simply money and an intellectual property contract that showed Lucas is still an amazing businessman. Disney only “owns” it just so much and Lucas seems to have found a way to get paid again if too much of HIS vision is used. It turns out Lucas is also pretty successful in litigation when he sets his pack of lawyers on people, even Disney. I don’t think he went out of his way to make this clear and waited for them to make a mistake. Rogue One was almost pure Lucas and I think, with no proof, that he had his lawyers go down there to Rat HQ at Disney with a very serious letter about how much they needed to pay for exceeding the copyright. Good for Lucas, bad for fans as the run from Lucas properties becomes a priority and a plot driver for the Disney Movies.

This is why the killing off of his properties has been central to this new series. In The Last Jedi they kill off the ships from Lucas’ movies. Before that in so-so Force Awakens, Han Solo is just plain old killed in a typical ‘Abrams Parent Killing Scene’ we’re so used to its no longer emotional. For example, he kills 2 parents in half an hour in his first, deceptively good but “all beginning” Star Trek movie. It’s his last nominally good movie. Follow up Into Darkness was a complete mess and disaster that angered all Trek fans as he seemed to sabotage the franchise on the way out the door. One of the biggest insults- lying about what was in the movie to make it pop more. “It’s not Khan but a new villain named Harrison” was ridiculous and no one was surprised it was just bull when they saw the movie.

Into Darkness was THE most apologized for moment in a Franchise that at different times has starred a bunch of geriatrics, was written by soap opera and western writers, was for a time abandoned by its creator and was led by William Shatner on a shoestring TV budget in the Politically Incorrect 1960s!!! Whats THAT say?

Since it’s the same fans for the most part, no one was all that psyched to see him land at the helm of Star Wars, and Disney has turned out to be a bad fit. Talk about “Failing Your Way Up!”

In the Disney Star Wars Universe it’s this simple -the closer they get to Lucas’ Vision of The Galaxy Far, Far Away the more Lucas must be paid. But the closer to Lucas the better the movie. Disney just wants money.

George Lucas, The Real Emperor of the Galaxy Far, Far Away

Unlike Abrams, Lucas’ genius as a filmmaker pales in comparison to his abilities as a highly profitable business man. Time and again he puts profits first and gets them.

George Lucas generated a fortune for the studios and he managed to please the fans about four and half times out of 6 tries. The only things people truly hated was his slow pace of development between projects and retconning too much.

Hollywood loved that he put profits first too. In one case a better video transfer technique was right around the corner, but the deadline was more important and a pink shift/ purple shift affected the way the entire first trilogy looked. (Note- the version in Disney Plus right now is even a little more re-engineered, with the damage from other transfers somewhat addressed.) Now it looks like he understood the market and his abilities better than people ever gave him credit for.

Theres Only One George Lucas

At the end of the day the fact is George Lucas was far and away a better creative than JJ Abrams and still made a lot of money. Mountains of it. This is because Lucas self corrected a couple of times. Abrams, contrastingly, has been making and remaking the same two plots for 15 years now. And one plot is just ‘total pasted together fan-angering mess!’ and the other is “Bad Guys Have an ad hoc Death Star”

Yes, Phantom Menace is terrible, but things improved fast despite the lack of goodwill for awhile towards the prequels. The bottom line – most of the things people hated in Phantom Menace are minimized or written away in Attack of the Clones, a movie that gets BETTER every 10 minutes even if its never really “great” it’s not terrible like its prequel and doesn’t make all the same mistakes that movie makes(only some of them, mostly upfront).

You’ll Love it for 6 Bucks

That’s right, I said it, Rise of Skywalker will be a great view in a few months when you can watch it at home for 6 bucks. You’ll probably feel pretty good about punting on it. The theater is just a bad risk now. Some people I know have already seen it and one review was ‘preposterous’. So I don’t think I’m gonna end up being wrong on this.

My Plea

Don’t bother going to the theater to enable a bad incarnation of a once great franchise. The movie looks derivative and bad. The lead up and trailers are bad. The promise to slow down making the movies if we just see this one is not encouraging at all and wont be kept.

So skip this movie, or, as a wise Sith once said to Luke Skywalker; “You will pay the price for your lack of vision!”

May the Force be with You as you watch the Mandalorian with a borrowed Disney code. That at least has mostly been really good.

Just Another Sci Fi Franchise

That’s right, you heard it here first. The bloom has been off the rose for awhile, but now the Star Wars movies are just plain old movies like any other franchise. Worse yet, these newer movies have a higher chance of being bad than just any sci fi movie, and in fact Avengers has been better for a while. While Rogue One delivered, really the next best movie they’ve given us is the shaky (and now undermined) The Force Awakens, which is not quite as good as Phantom Menace.

And there’s no real need to go to crime ridden Orlando for the Theme Park til the price comes down either but that’s another post.

The Dopes Live 6-22-19 at Sonic Solstice Indie Music Fest

25 Tuesday Jun 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Uncategorized

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the Dopes Live at the Sonic Solstice Music Festival. headphones or blue-toothing off your phone gets a good sound quality

dopes_6-22

mcdope

Secretive “Doctor” Fredric Cogan – UNPROFESSIONAL, ARROGANT AND HAS COVERED HIS TRACKS ONLINE

24 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in DR Fredric Cogan, Quack Doctors of New York, Uncategorized

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Arrogant doctors, Bad doctors in floral park, charlatan doctors of long island, Doctor Fred Cogan, Doctor Fredric Cogan, Doctors who think theyre god, Dr Cogan, DR Fredric Cogan, Family, Floral Park doctors, Fred cogan drinking problem, fred cogan floral park, Fredric Cogan MD, patient killers, Quack doctors, Quacks, shady doctors, Unqualified doctors, What Dr Fredric Cogan hiding?, who IS fredric cogan

Despite the glib charm of a sociopath Fred Cogan’s personality is that of a high handed jerk. He’s indiscreet and might just be banned from practicing in New Jersey. Personally I hope he reads this and tries to maybe change his ways (and takes a medical refresher course).

Here’s a review I found when i spent 2 hours creeping his internet footprint. It’s on Vitals.com. It lines up with what most people say, like that he doesnt bother with stuff like keeping records or getting test results or even take blood. He’ll put you on or take you off cancer meds on a whim! This is rank incompetence and sheer greed. I consider him almost an accomplice to murder by this point. Guess its useful in litigation. By freewheeling it without testing people for anything by the time the patient figures it out IF they figure it out) and he gets sued; their at Deaths Door from his Quackery and he just has to delay court proceedings. Soon enough you’ll be dead from malpractice and his problems will be solved. You know how easy it is to get an temporary adjournment?

Over the course of my life I’ve seen him about 12 times in 3 different decades and I find him to be one of the most unprofessional doctors this side of a M*A*S*H* rerun. If he’s a character from that show he’s Frank Burns.

He thinks he’s Floral Parks answer to TV’s Doctor House, but is more ‘Dr Outhouse’ because he comes across like hes full of shit (he is). I wouldn’t send my worst enemy to him for as much as an aspirin. He’d misdiagnose a hangnail. The only thing he has in common with House might be that neither was a REAL doctor and both had legal issues in New Jersey. We don’t know, what the HELL he did wrong BEFORE the Internet. That’s probably the only reason he was able to move his medicine show from Jersey to New York and get away with it.

No Professional Accolades and a Hard to Fathom Move

So a man with no professional awards and no specialization suddenly is ambitious enough to take a whole new set of medical exams all over again in the neighboring state? Sounds like he lost his license to me. Yellowpages says “Speaks English” as his sole distinguishing trait. Not good. What did he do? Did he arrogantly fuck up and hurt someone? That’s what I think.

I have experienced firsthand and have suffered from his incompetence. How mediocre is he? Well they dont give 2 point 2 Stars to just anyone, you gotta earn that kind of mediocrity. And surely one of the high ratings is from him and another from his SEO guy, so maybe he’s actually a 2 out of 5! Reviews of his work are few and far between. Seems his medical experience is about as current and useful as the art of making wooden barrels. So, almost nil.

His pathetic 3.7 of 5 stars rating on google should frighten ANYONE.

This is about the highest rating he has on any site. On Vitals.com he reviews at 3 of 5 stars. Thats only good for movie ratings. The math says hes just a hair below 50-50, which is bad odds to gamble on your life, he doesnt care though. Fred “Not So Great at Medicine” is incompetent or lazy and greedy. He not test for problems, avoids sending samples to labs to lazily avoid paper work and just wings it. Theres no way he hores staff that are qualified, hes cheap as a seersucker suit from the Salvation army.

Fred is a not a doctor from another time. His knowledge is so out of date its from when Barbers gave medical treatment. I didn’t notice a jar of leeches, but it fits with his out of it and foolish ideas.

So he and an employee seem to be the only people whose opinions made it on most websites.

The comments are, and he paid for them if you ask me – “He has great bedside manner”? I laughed when i read that, I think he wrote that one himself because he has no beds and no manners. Just tables and a God Complex. Right out of Marketing 101, promote yourself by calling your flaws strengths. Its just not true.

He’s more a businessman than a doctor. Thinking Patient or Visitor are his only titles in ANY hospital. Could every hospital be wrong? Or is it simply just too risky to allow his total shitshow in there? And why did he need to move to the Middle East to go to a little known medical school? No one in the US, Canada or Grenada would have him?

All rating sites combined have a total of about 2 dozen reviews TOTAL. And one of each of them (at least) were surely written by him.

These are my opinions, experiences and feelings about a guy holding many lives in his hands. Some of them are my friends. You deserve better. I’ve also compiled what little there is on the internet, none of which is that impressive and all of which is suspect and possibly scrubbed. If you didn’t vote for Hillary over her missing Emails why would you go to a doctor whose apparently lost HALF HIS CAREER?? Isn’t that allegedly a sign of incompetence? And he’s the guy checking out YOUR HEART! Something he DOESN’T even have?

When you Google around searching for information the only thing you find out is he’s pretty much ghosted his professional life from the internet. That’s a tough and pricey thing to do. It would show he knows he is pretty incompetent, but he likes your money too much to become a mere pharmacist. He’s intellectually vain. He’s not open and transparent thats for sure. I don’t think he has a conscience.

0 out of 5 stars on Yellowpages website

only image i could find online

Arrogant, Mysterious and Indiscreet

This arrogant guy should not be a doctor. Or even a vet.

He acts more like an angry school teacher most of the time. I’m still reeling over the fact a doctor would call a patient “A Dismal Character” because they needed prescriptions refilled that he never bothered checking out. That was his opening line. Was it because he already knew I wouldn’t be coming back and was pissed? Who knows? The guys got a bad temper.

I had a common problem. I was looking to change shrinks, it was sort of time consuming. So I was down to like 2 days of meds and going there seemed expedient. “At least I’ll have a month to find a new doctor,” I thought. I was already less than a fan but I figured an honest appeal to his professionalism and compassion would get me the medicines I had been on for a couple of years til I found a new shrink. Wow, was I ever wrong! He possesses no professionalism and has as much compassion as a robot.

The Childish Meltdown and Lies

He was horrible to me and made sure to tell his whole waiting room of my friends and neighbors what I needed and grandstand about what he would and wouldn’t give me, making sure to BLURT OUT ALL SPECIFICS in his very public waiting room. The 20 some odd people in there looked at me like I was scum, but one person got up and left, presumably shaken and maybe afraid of what “Doctor” Cogan would do to him when his turn came. He was the smartest person in that room that day.

3.2 of 5 stars from about a dozen reviews in 46 years is the best he could do

The evidence is right there in his horrific demeanor. So maybe you think this is personal? No, but it is based on personal experiences. Besides, I feel guilty letting others be mislead by a guy who I feel only cares about his wallet and is, in my opinion nothing but a huge charlatan. Throw in a penchant to yell and a loud speaking voice and its just toxic to be around him.

I pity his staff. He was brisk and brittle to them too. At least they got paid for it. And the people who think he’s great are just fake accounts some SEO guy created to help him out. His 5 star reviewer has never reviewed anything else on Google, he’s fake, heres the proof-

It sure looks like this person, so moved to support Cogan, whose only other review is for a place is Japan and has no info and no pictures posted is just fake. As fake as Fred’s smile.

In these troubled times can a man who has to create fake endorsements deserve your trust? If he were painting houses with that rating you wouldn’t allow him to paint yours, would you? Cause throw out that fake 5 star reviews and hes around a 1.9 out of 5.

The lack of information online, and the fact he seems to have PAID a Search Engine Optimization guy to cover his tracks from 1974 til now on the internet seems to be damning enough. Compassionless and indiscreet, he will blab about your prescriptions and condition in a waiting room full of your neighbors. He enjoys it. He’s an actor more than anything else, and a bad and dangerous one at that; faking it every minute while he gets richer.

Seems since 1974 he’s received NO MEDICAL AWARDS, and NO recognition of any kind he can put on the internet. I think he’s on the Floral Park Chamber of Commerce, so he probably has “Best Doctor At 176 Tulip Avenue” on a plaque. That’s about as much as he deserves.

The internet wasn’t around yet, so he got away with it longer than he should have. There’s lots of questions but very few answers.

Everyone Will Know Why You’re There

Like I said, last time I went to see him I just had no choice. As I awaited him he loudly spoke to a woman I know just feet away about serious issues. As usual he just wasn’t sure what was wrong with her even after the many visits he mentioned, but he still enjoyed telling her bad news loudly. Through the half open door I could SEE THEM looking at images in his idiotically public x-ray viewer. They were too shocked and upset to notice, but I was mortified for them. A bad feeling set in.

Every time I saw her after I want to tell her but Im not her doctor and it would seriously upset anyone. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place! I haven’t seen her in a long time now, who knows where his incompetence landed her. The poor woman could well be dead from his lack of integrity.

I watched them, mystified, as he victimized them with a HIPPA violation and ‘interpreted” her chest X-Rays! I didnt see anything about being a radiologist anywhere. He’s NOT qualified but he does not care and is too cheap to be through.

It was so avoidable an error. Had he thought through ANY of his methods? Had he even bothered letting a radiologist look or was he freelancing? He was baffled; so I guess the second. She was in tears and just needed better care. Fred didn’t even consider that option. Fred doesn’t suffer from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. He knows he’s mediocre and just doesn’t care. Her boyfriend, who I went to HIgh School with, was there trying to do the right thing comforting her and I don’t think they appreciate what I overheard. How do I tell them? It was just WRONG.

Simply put Cogan was raking in more and more cash from his own incompetence! He didn’t recommend a specialist, for a LUNG PROBLEM and just set her up for another appointment. CHA-CHING! Hey if she gets better or goes to a better doctor he loses money, right? So he was out of his league and couldn’t help, but he was motivated to keep getting paid. So much for “Do No Harm.” Thanks for the moral dilemma, Fred.

Funny how it doesn’t bother him that he’s doing things so unprofessionally when even I know better, and I’m a mere college grad, he’s DOCTOR! Or at least he’s a doctor in New York, and maybe the Golan Heights. I’m thinking he may be forbidden from touching ANYONE in New Jersey due to botching a boob job or cutting off the wrong leg. Or his terrible temper, or his general lack of any skill.

What Happened in his Hidden Wasted Years?

What did he do for 25 years that landed him in another state starting over about a quarter century after Med School? It’s not like he moved to California for the weather. He stayed close to New Jersey. It seems he couldn’t just move to the next town in that state. He instead opted for a long commute, through and past New York City and all that traffic, to the most western town on Long Island. To a town with plenty of doctors already. Floral Park was probably the closest place he could go to start over. It seems really odd, but he’s not saying why.

As I’ve said, I think he HAD to LEAVE New Jersey because he was just incompetent and got in trouble. So he’s is playing the citizens of Floral Park for suckers. He’s also playing god. He likes doing both.

If I’m wrong he could always respond. Or list his credentials in the town paper. I doubt he’d need much Ad Space to cover his accomplishments.

A Public Shaming Rather than Compassion and Treatment

When it was my turn to face his ‘selection process’ or whatever you call the insane nazi-like way he acted towards me, he came in like he was shot out of a cannon and almost foaming at the mouth. Was he drunk or high from a little snack from his small fridge of drugs?

Never dropping below a blistering shout he admonished me for having come to him at all and described me in cruel, demeaning terms because I take some psych meds. So he’s a believer in Eugenics on that count. He was shouting and it escalated as he fed off his own preposterus indignance. At this point I ready to be examined and couldn’t simply leave, it was a clever angle of attack. An attack he ENJOYED. I was near naked and cornered. It was AWFUL!

I told him to shove his character assessment up his ass as he doesn’t have a psych degree and asked to return to the matter at hand- I had no doctor and needed my meds or I’d end up in a hospital ER from the physical effects of a cold turkey withdrawal. It was dangerous and bad for me, the supposed patient. He was an ass about the whole thing and was surely getting off on the scene he was acting out (like I said he thinks he’s a TV doctor). He was more than happy to expose me to danger. He seemed to enjoy that too, He’s a judgmental prick. Great trait for a “Healer”. In keeping with the spirit of Josef Mengele! I dont think even lowly unknown Middle Eastern Med Schools would countenance that. So hes worse than a rookie with no experience.

He couldn’t have cared less about my medical problem and was biased against people who need psych meds.. He just kept preaching in a vacuum of facts, spitballing hateful opinions of a non medical nature about me.

He shouted out he considered my visit there as an attempt at seeking drugs. Is there even a black market for Latuda? So I said “Fuck you” got dressed and went to take care of the bill, which is to say I was informing the secretary that I’d received NO treatment and requested my records (he never sent them). Thankfully I wasn’t yet out of meds and was able to not punch him in the face like I would have if someone attacked me verbally on the street. Hes a cowardly bully.

Not getting paid for 2 minutes of verbally abusing me might have set him off. Guys all about money. He flipped out. His already bad behavior deteriorated into a screaming fit. I was walking away pulling on my shirt. He stepped right into the lobby and began his unseemly soliloquy.

He again assaulted me verbally, but now publicly. It was humiliating. He enjoyed playing to the audience. He took pleasure in belittling me. When I told him “Hey, not in here:” he looked shocked and I guess already knew how unethical he was acting, he just likes to belittle people. His secretary looked up momentarily with a sad look of sheer embarrassment. She’d surely seen this before.”Its fine” Cogan knowingly lied to the gaping crowd more than me. “It’s not fine, in fact it;s probably illegal” were the last words I said as I walked out of his little death camp of an office. “Dick!” I seethed as I walked to my car.

That’s right, I went for help and he insulted me and belittled me and yelled my diagnosis out loud, complete with details and medicines, in his waiting room. Unethical at best. Half those people knew me. He’s a creep. I barely maintained my composure. I was already in a bad place. He just needed to yell at someone. Is he a drunk? He’s got enough anger.

An hour later a different local doctor handed me the scripts with compassion and I sure wish I’d gone there first. He may have saved my life, he definitely spared me a trip to the ER or worse.

Almost Absent from the Internet in 2019 -So Whats He Hiding?

This guy has worked harder to stay off the internet than he ever did at that Middle Eastern medical school. Theres only nefarious, vague stuff. I have bigger internet footprint. He’s hiding something pretty bad is what it seems like.

One thing i Found was “No Malpractice Suits IN NEW YORK”. First of all what does “No Malpractice Suits in New York” mean? It didnt say “No Mlpractice suits” so he’s probably just settled out of court, or more likely, conned the person til they died.

As we all now finally know; after being a doctor from the early 70s he just materializes in Floral Park a quarter century later? With no internet yet he must have laughed his ass off at the new set of rubes he would con.

I’m betting he has a few legal and professional problems back home in Jersey. When he showed up in New York and even up til now he has no track record he’s willing to show. Sure looks like he fucked someone up in a different state. Here’s the link to his 2 sentence bio.

Or – read it here – Dr. Fredric Cogan, MD is a family medicine specialist in Floral Park, NY and has been practicing for 45 years. He graduated from Sackler School Of Medicine, Tel Aviv University in 1974 and specializes in family medicine.

Two sentences is all he’s got? He’s at it almost a half century and it boils down to 2 sentences? One of which is simply his location? Not good.

SO WHATS HE HIDING?

If you can figure this out tell me, here’s all i don’t know –

IS HE THE SAME DR COGAN WHO CANT WORK IN HIS HOME STATE OF NEW JERSEY?

WHY DID HE HAVE TO GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

IS HE JUST A FAILED PLASTIC SURGEON?

IS HE ALSO BANNED FROM ISRAEL WHERE HE GOT HIS START?

IS HE THE SAME FRED COGAN WHO HAS NO HOSPITAL WILLING TO LET HIM BE AN AFFILIATE?

WHY DOES HE HAVE A FRIGHTENINGLY LOW 3.2 of 5 STARS on the Real Yellowpages site? WORSE- WHY DOES HE HAVE ZERO STARS and no reviews ON Yelp ? A rating site thats now 15 years old? I think it took effort.

He has all of 12 reviews on that Yellowpages site and barely breaks even. He’s a hair away from being rated bad because the truth is he’s mediocre. And I’m pretty sure he wrote one review himself and probably hired someone to write at least one more. Without that he could be like 2.5 out of 5. Are you okay with that? If so, put me in your will. I like money too.

Remember- he started in 1974 but has apparently never done anything to distinguish himself and earned DISMAL RATINGS! (you see what i did there?)

His reputation is subpar and his specialty? He has NONE. FAMILY PRACTICE is all he admits too. What specialty did he fail at? Or was it a character issue? Was he a pill pusher in the day and thats why hes so angry when people need medicine? Hes just angrily thinking of the money hes losing because he’s a greedy dick.

It’s odd. Most guys eventually get good at something they can put on their sign. One site describes his specialty as “General.” Meanwhile he can’t diagnose worth a shit, so why even bother?

Your family doctor is essentially supposed to be able to figure out whats wrong with you quick and if he can’t help you send you to someone who can. So he’s 0 for 2 in the only 2 things you need your General Practitioner to be good at. Just using the internet is probably about as good, and you can also find REAL doctors with real bios on it. Fred’s got only a one sentence description. Part of that sentence is simply stating the year he graduated. What was he? A phrenologist?

I think he’s a quack. One mans opinion. Go ahead, search the internet and if you find any answers I’ll amend this post.

You Wouldn’t Take This From Your Mechanic, Why’s a Doctor Any Different?

Would you hire a roofer or mechanic to do any job if he’d been at it for 50 years but has no details, no testimonials, but says ‘hey trust me?’ Of course not.

This isn’t your replaceable house or your car, IT’S YOUR ONE AND ONLY LIFE AND THE LIVES OF YOUR LOVED ONES. What is it he won’t let us know? For all we know he killed someone or messed up someone in whatever his ‘specialty’ once was. Who practices anything for 50 years and has no accolades? Even chiropractor Dr Ruppolo on Tulip ave once consulted with NASA! And hes not actually a medical doctor! so whats up with Fred?

Is he just a failed plastic surgeon who disfigured someone? Did he get caught at work drunk? He’s got a 25 year gap in his career. He’s invited speculation.

On one site there’s all of maybe 4 testimonials, two apparently written by him because both revues are 5 stars when he pulls between zero and 3&1/2 of 5 stars everywhere else. He still had a low rating is spite of this. It’s not a representative sample and they shouldn’t have rated him at all based on less then a half dozen opinions total since 1974!!!

“Drop-Dead Fred” Cogan has kept most of the key information about his professional life off the internet. No small feat in 2019. Seems like he paid an SEO expert and a lawyer to sanitize his internet footprint, which is so small you can read it all in 4 minutes.

You gotta wonder why. I think its cause his past performances have gotten him in trouble. If he disagrees he can write to me here and I’ll be happy to listen, but he probably won’t because he really is an just arrogant guy.

Why the ghosting? Is he just afraid if we’re already on the internet to book an appointment his shady reputation will be right out there and people will rightly move on? I think so. Simpest answer is – he’s hiding something and rightfully ashamed he couldnt get into an American (ot maybe even Canadian) Med School. I bet he graduated low in his class.

As good a Doctor as Howard the Duck is a movie

Poorly Rated and Has Scrubbed the Internet

He’ll let you get sicker and if you die he’ll sleep like a baby. He once blamed ME for the disease he, shocker, couldn’t pin down. Turns out one glimpse at my blood through a microscope revealed the problem IMMEDIATELY. So thorough is NOT in his lexicon. I already found him lacking as a human being and a doctor, but I needed my meds. I was on these medications for years and they were triple prescribed in the sense every REAL doctor was all for the course of treatment. But this guys not a REAL doctor. Real Doctors are discreet and caring.

He’s an internet mystery in the Digital Age. Im not sure who he even is he’s covered his tracks covered so well. How does this guy even have patients with no internet footprint? I think it’s simply LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! And why doesnt anyone google this guy before going there? He’d be making people sicker in Maryland or something by now if they did!

The little you find on the internet about Fred is not good. Were I him I’d be all over the internet setting people straight with a rebuttal. He’s not. Could it be because calling him a bad doctor has already held up to legal scrutiny? There’s probably court papers somewhere (in New Jersey) certifying he’s a bad doctor in so many words and he CAN’T answer the charges or change the verdict.

If he’s never done an internet search on himself, wouldn’t that alone be sort of reckless and dumb? Thats plain old bad judgement. FROM A DOCTOR! These are 2 traits that fit well with the guy who mistreated and admonished me from his high horse like an asshole.

I would think he would address these issues if he could, so the fact he hasn’t may mean he can’t. If theres another Dr Fred Cogan ruining his rep you’d think he’d try to establish an online rebuttal where he shows his pelts and degrees. If it exists anywhere I couldn’t find it.

So youre relationship starts off with a lie. How’s that usually work out? You’d walk out on your Tinder date for this kind of deception, why take it from him?

I think he’ll shorten your life and just blame you. He’s a self important prima donna. Is he just overcompensating because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about? Were his parents just failures who raised a jerk? Wheres his credentials? Of course he’s got a great lobby, he has to take your mind off the things that aren’t on his wall. Things like Diplomas and certifications. Last time I was there he was in Floral Park like 20 years and still hadn’t got around to it. Could it be because he never earned a prestigious degree and is hiding how unqualified he is? The only case for going to him is if you judge doctors by the magazines in their waiting rooms. That’s his strongest area. Seriously.

HIs bio leaves simply omits what he did for the first 25 years of his career, about half. Nothing between 1974 until he pops up in New York in the 90s can be found. Did he just blow off 25 years of his career as unpostable? Ask him, see what he says.

When I asked where he went to medical school he just said he was very backed up and changed the subject. He’s evasive. So the question is WHY?

If you need a compassionate doctor, look elsewhere.

STAY AWAY! HE’S COMPLETELY INDSCREET IN HIS OFFICE. I WONDER WHAT HE’D SAY WHEN HE”S OUT HAVING A BEER ?! I’d go to a Voodoo Witch Doctor before him!

This is the only thing the internet verifies – his address, a former porno movie studio, once occupied by a therapist who went to jail. I consider it an ongoing crime scene. It certainly isn’t a very lucky place historically.

As for Cogan? He’s out of step, slow to comprehend and is hostage to his narrow-minded ways. He probably has leeches somewhere and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him say that someones medical problems were that their bodily humors were out of balance. He would have been perfect around 1860.

Do you want a doctor whose just bad at analyzing medical information? Do you? Do you really? Well then go to Fred.

He lacks the compassion a good doctor needs and his knowledge is more outdated every year. As he approaches retirement he probably cares less than ever. If the internet was around in 1974 I bet he’d be a Dog Catcher at best by now.

STAY AWAY!

So thats my personal experiences and opinion of this ‘doctor’. Lets him sue WordPress and see if he gets anywhere. Barry School of Law wasn’t able to pull down the truth i posted about them, and they’re a law school with nothing BUT attorneys. He wont be able to silence me either either.

This is still America, I have the right to tell the truth just as Freddie Kruger Cogan has the right try to scrub what he can off the the internet. This post is not going away.

He looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck so I’ll just say it- All signs are he sucks at his job. He’s just too self important to quit. He’s a Quack.

Were he to become an insult comedian he certainly has the skills.

He’s Don Rickles in a lab coat as far as I’m concerned.

Go elsewhere, the life you save will be your own.

What’s great is I think we have the same lawyer so if he comes after me it’s the B Team for him up against me and the 1st Amendment. I won’t need counsel to destroy any legal attempt to smother the truth. And then I’ll sue his ass for Unjust Persecution and win acting as my own lawyer. He’ll probably act out on court and hand me an easy win. Lawyers tend to hate doctors anyway. So I’m just not concerned.

Theodor Morell was more qualified and less abusive, whats that say?

How Trump Avoids Doing Any Work

09 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in 25th Amendment, How Trump Avoids Work, Trump Fake Weather Map, Trump's Failure to Fulfill Oath of Office, Uncategorized

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25 amendment, 25th Amendment, bone spurs, Can Trump Read?, Infrastructure week, mitch mcconnell, Notable draft dodgers, Trump ad hoc government, Trump doesnt do any work, trump fake hurricane map, trump fakes hurricane map, Trump is bad at everything, Trump Lazy, trump russia collusion, trump sharpie hurricane map, Trump sleep deprived, trump tantrum, why is trump so fat and stupid?

UPDATED – One thing we can be sure of in the 4 awful years since Trump announced his candidacy – the guy hates work.

It’s beyond obvious he’s delegated (through inaction) all responsibilities to the least qualified and most inept people to handle any given thing. That’s how you get so many failed ideas on things like the Southern Border and the infamous, repeated ‘INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK’ Meltdowns.

During the campaign he was able to show up for a lot of rallies and puff out a lot of anger and it sort of looked like he was able to work. But it turns out boasting in front of an all white crowd of angry, intolerant people is actually Trump’s preferred form of recreation. So let’s not call campaigning “Work”.

He despises work and you can tell. When forced to go through the motions he’s always visibly bored or angry.

He came prepared with a host of methods to avoid doing his job, but now this is the White House and the schemes to avoid work become obvious.

Fake it

Essentially, Trump’s faking it. It’s not like he’s all that good at it, but he doesn’t really care how it plays. Laziness is at the core of the “Trump Leadership Style”, if you can call it that.

Let’s look at a few of his “Go-To” ways to dodge things; like reading (CAN he read?) or working in any way.

A Major Announcement is Coming…

There’s a MAJOR policy announcement coming on whatever he’s been asked about; and really any and all topics. When? In about 2 weeks. It never ends up happening.

As the president has stonewalled off all transparency and minimized his exposure to the press there’s been no way to really follow this up.

Busy Looking Meetings and Confusing Outright Lies

The president likes to look like a work-a-holic who also has the time to develop and keep a very deep tan. These two at odds traits make it hard to look all that busy, but he goes through the motions anyway.

The meetings traditionally have gone one of two ways. Either the president will sit back and drinks in praise from whoever he’s invited to a meeting, and it could be anyone, from Mitch McConnell to Kanye. It looks so Banana Republic because it is.

Another track these meetings and brief press availabilities often go is that Trump will take exception to a question and have a tantrum. But he’s standing in front of his helicopter so he has sort of an excuse to shout. Its when I feel he looks most like a dictator. No helicopter needs that long to warm up! See “Showing off his toys” later on in this post.

When forced to work he hates it and it shows. The busy looking moments come with a price. He usually undermines whatever he did musing on Twitter later the same day.

G7 Work Slowdown

More recently he managed to get in some busy looking moments in scattered attendance at meetings while lying about skipping a few of them, tomake up for this he went on a spate of lies throughout the conference, where people say he was an adverserial jerk. He didnt understand what was going on so he either co-opted, tuned out or skipped a few conferences because he just doesnt want to work.

Soon after we got more work avoidance of a slightly different nature related to ‘kicking the can: for two weeks’ thing. Its designed to stave off critical questions or things he just dosn’t know. This would be lying about getting a couple of calls from the Chinese and how they were going to cave to him in his preposterous trade war, which in itself is a work-avoidance scam. Of course, as the Chinese let us know, it never happened.

The G7 is where he dropped some a couple of weird statements and tweets and the lightened schedule of meetings still took its toll on him. He rambled incoherently at times. The bizarre statement that his wife had gotten to know Kim Jung-Un somehow was just weird. For the record theyve never met. The bottom line is he probably doesnt remember they never met because he cant remember much in general. Like for instance what a Category 5 Hurricane is, even the fifth time around since he took office.

Either way the meeting gets on TV and the Dear Leader looks busy. And again, he just doesn’t care how bad it looks. He leaves any meeting of world leaders with a flurry of erratic tweets. Just to look busy.

Create A Crisis

Instead of getting down to the brass tacks of Trade or Infrastructure the president will start tweeting something crazy and draconian that he may or may not do. Insulting a world leader, screaming about a perceived Trade Injustice or just attacking some random person are all possible when he goes this route.

We just saw the perfect illustration of this with Trump showing he’s not working. realizing it, and lies to cover it up when he claimed Hurricane Dorian was heading towards Alabama. This was only true for a tiny sliver of Alabama on models that had been out of date for about 4 days at the time of his announcement.

In fact all parts of Alabama were out of danger when he gave his web announcement. He later needlessly lied to cover his laziness. Since he had to pretend to be busy and informed he couldn’t look four days behind! So he faked it like a fourth grader, apparently scribbling in what we can only call “The Executive Storm Track” of the storm, with a sharpie, over other, legitimate models he displayed on a map. The map didn’t have the marking on it when they gave it to him. He literally extended into the storm track with a pen on his own…. or possibly had a aide do it, but he knew he was showing altered, inaccurate information.

Thats right, the president put a fake storm track that included Alabama rather than admit he was wrong. The only good news is like everything ls else he does it was obvious and badly done. I guess we’re left to wonder how bad things might be were he to get better at the lying. Maybe the problem is the lies are spontaneous and unplanned. Maybe its because they’re so huge and sloppily done to this point, but the president created the impression of danger anyone believing was real probably spends like 200 dollars preparing for. In the case of Alabama, you just had a needless financial burden thrust on you by Trump’s ego.

‘Solving’ the Created Crisis

One great thing about inventing a fake hurricane is being able to make it goins away! That Dorian Non-Strike on Alabama will be seen as a win by Trump. The other places where the storm could cause a problem can;t be seeing this delusion as a good sign though.

When a tweet goes sour or an idea goes viral in the wrong way the president will use the aforementioned “A Major Announcement is coming very soon” stall.

We’ve seen him claim credit for stuff he’s had nothing to do with over and over, or that were in the works for years if not decades , stealing the credit or blame from whoever really tried to legislate the issue. Problem solved. He feels he looked engaged and busy.

Then, a day or so later, an aide or cabinet member will say on the record the president wasn’t serious about the crisis he created or the horrible things he was ‘forced to say’.

Sometimes we find out that he’s simply bitching about something that was settled months ago. It’s just done for it to be on TV anyway. Again, he could care less how it plays. He considers it a win.

We just saw this in the Mexico Tariff Shell Game. At the last minute he pretended he had issues with Mexico and would impose tariffs. Then nothing happened and BLOTUS tweets he’s made a major deal. The Mexicans, for their part, were rightly confused and a little annoyed that an issue from a deal previously signed and settled is coming up again.

The media usually notes the deal is weeks or months old and there was never much chance Trump was going to do any of the things he threatened. It doesn’t matter, he looked busy. Mission Accomplished.

The Kremlin loves this too, by the way.

Wrong Time

The president will make threats and spitball policy ideas on Twitter at 4:56 am and then not show up anywhere until like 1 pm. When the rest of America wakes up hes passed back out but it looks like he was working.

This is part of a deeper theory I have. It’s that Trump doesn’t fall asleep and wake up like a normal person. In fact I think he’s like 2 days of sleep behind all the time. This would explain his constant confusion and brittle disposition. He can’t ‘sleep’, he only passes out from being awake too long for say 4 hours about every 20 to 30 hours. 12 Diet Cokes a day will do that to you.

So in a nutshell; my theory is he passes out from sheer exhaustion (and a caffeine crash) after 20 to 30 hours of ‘wakefulness.” Less than 5 hours later he wakes up in a cold sweat screaming the moment his body has been in stasis long enough for his mind to start to panic again. Then he ‘wakes up’ and starts the cycle again. He’s never anything but overtired, grumpy and scared.

Most of the time in he’s just in a torpor half out of it half watching Fox News Opinion shows that tell him he’s great. This is so his ego never has to stop grazing.

Wrong Place

This is maybe the Kremlin’s very favorite thing Trump reliably does.

The ‘president’ will just go somewhere and be completely inappropriate. Time and again we’ve seen him showing absolute contempt for his surroundings. He hates to work at all but has to make it look like he must be doing his job. Whether he looks like he’s doing it badly just doesn’t matter to him.

Be it standing in front of the CIA Wall of the Fallen while just lying about the size of the crowd and weather at his inauguration, saluting a murderous North Korean General, accepting Putin’s offer to investigate the 2016 Election, or sitting in front of the graves of 9,300 Americans who were killed storming the beach at Normandy; he says and does the wrong thing every time.

Remember last year when he shoved the Prime Minister of Montenegro out of the way? Or early in his presidency when he scared the shit out of thousands of Boy Scouts and angered their adult leaders with a crazy militaristic speech? That last disgraceful move has the president BANNED from any Boy Scout function. There’s a presidential first! The guy’s plain old inappropriate and he doesn’t care.

The president will act badly, provably lie and say completely inappropriate things in places you would consider sacred or at High Stakes Summits.

He has no idea about protocol and disgracefully supplicates himself to Putin and other nefarious figures regularly. He just wants the Photo Op to make it seem like he’s working.

He then dominates the news cycle with whatever disgraceful move he made, every crazy lie he told and/or bizarre threat he made.

Since getting on TV and getting things accomplished are pretty much the same thing to Trump, he considers it a win. At least no one’s talking about his terrible poll numbers or the multiple failed dictator moves like the Travel Ban, right?

Some people seem to buy it.

Fighting With Dead People

Death isn’t the end of Trump having a nonstop problem with you. No one is dead enough to escape his perma-rage.

One thing this president has shown is a boiler-plate pattern of being highly inappropriate and crude, especially about things that scare him. For instance – Military Heroes and the whole concept of death.

Usually it’s a beloved or revered Military hero that he focuses on. It’s the sheer insecurity of a Draft Dodger who didn’t even have the courage to say he was against the War. He just invented a disability and when the war ended he was magically cured. I’m sure most of the people with Incurable Bone Spurs would love him to share how he made them go away. No such luck.

Since dead people cant really fight back and he could care less how his words affect their families, he does it all the time. Be it refusing to lower the White House flag when John McCain died or mocking the parents of a soldier whose made the ultimate sacrifice, Trump feels like this makes him look on task and in charge.

Again, some people buy it.

Showing Off His Toys

Informal and insane statements while walking to his helicopter, with engine roaring, are a great way to look busy. So this is how we usually see Trump. The fact he usually yells when he talks anyway is slightly less out of place, but he makes up for it by being extra caustic in these moments.

So what if he’s flying to his own club to play golf or to one of his “Show-Rallies”? Any guy getting into helicopters that much must be working. Same thing with Air Force 1. He makes a few scathing comments in front of the plane, engines warming up, and he’s off.

Way to go, he just looked like he was working!

WHY?

Why would anyone act so stupidly? The short answer is “Donald Trump is LAZY and BAD AT EVERYTHING.” This extends to, well, everything. Be it what he tweets or who he hires and even to what information he takes in. He’s not an able Chief Executive.

In fact, were Articles of Impeachment built around an inability to fulfill his Oath of Office as such it would be hard for anyone to argue it wasn’t valid and would probably pass the House of Representatives.

Ever since his unexpected win Trump’s shown he’s unable to fulfill the Oath of Office. Nonetheless, he’s the president. Could it be that the Russians were punking all of us AND Trump too ? Like maybe he never thought he was going to win? It’s pretty easy to make the case he wasn’t trying to win with insane ad hoc policies and actions we saw on the trail. He was on the Low Road the whole time.
He’s never spent 10 seconds considering the importance of his job or shown any reverence to the office he holds.

And those are some of the ways Trump avoids doing any work.

Trump UK Visit – Was George Washington Simply Wrong?

03 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Trump UK Visit, Uncategorized

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President Trump is so bad and so hard to take that he’s a one man case that we should fire our entire government and return to British Empire. If given our own parliament and a several party system maybe this fascist craze will just blow over?

After an apparently sleepless trip across the pond where Air Force 1 sadly didn’t crash into the sea Trump blew out a bunch of insults and went to go visit the Brit Royals.

While the entire idea of having Royalty is completely stupid, the two princes seem to sort of be painfully aware of this. They do what they have to do with some humility. Quiet, gracious and compassionate, they couldn’t be more opposite Trump. Seeming to be always trying to earn the high degree of admiration they were born into, there’s no not liking them. And some of the Royals are really easy to not like. I was born into it from my Irish heritage. I had some relatives who HATED the Royal family. Those were different royals though and a much different time.

Prince Chuck, The Queen, crazy old Prince Philip? Take your pick. You could go to town on them, but then again they are all possessed of a great deal more dignity than Trump.

I guess I just think of my old Uncle Paddy who fought in Easter Rising bashing the Royals and it’s a little hard for me to admit they’re titular heads of a better government than ours. But it’s a mental hurdle I’ve now jumped.

Mostly because of the Princes. They’re simply nice guys. They were even nice to Trump. The princes are polar opposites from the scamming lowlife Trump clan; whose patriarch bashed prince Ginger’s wife, Meaghan Markle for no real reason and then just lied about it.

Watching Trump around the Queen is way too close to watching ‘The Naked Gun; from the Files of Police Squad’! Always inappropriate, dressed like shit in an off the rack suit, the president looks bad all the time and is an un-funny Frank Drebin.

He’s been there 3 hours, lets see what happens when they stop praising him and he opens his blowhole.

Why Not?

Meanwhile, would you not trade congress for an immediate parliamentary election with direct representation on all levels? Then they can do things like just remove Kavanaugh from the Bench.

The people have proven they can be lied to and there’s been a few presidents, like Trump, Reagan and Nixon, who colluded with Enemy Powers to win their bids. Maybe the people here in America are just like the people of Westeros and deserve self determination? Make the president a figurehead and super-ambassador with no power and no pardon power, and no nuclear football! It’s not like Cocaine Mitch McConnell isn’t calling most of the plays anyway.

Why NOT a Prime Minister who could quickly be removed? The Trump nightmare would have been a six week footnote rather than a protracted time of intolerance and bad governance. Plus we get all the screaming and yelling of a parliament, which also makes lots of sense for America. Imagine 4 parties. Maybe more, but there’s a mandate to cooperate. Like we wouldn’t benefit from more cooperation?

I could easily foresee the GOP and Democratic party enduring, and maybe a moderate party from the right and the left in the mix may better represent us. The more moderates would have a greater ability to influence more policy. Maybe the other two parties would be the Progressives and the Libertarians? It probably wouldn’t be worse.

Maybe, just maybe, George Washington was wrong. Or perhap just took it too far. The Chief Executive Office has by all definitions grown beyond its original mandate and is prone to tampering. There’s a whole bunch of arguments about why congress is a mess. Why not a bicameral parliament?

Then there the Electoral College Choke-Point leftover from making room in the Constitution for slavery. It didn’t come out of anything good and lead to the Civil War and so many bad chief executives its can only be called bad. It’s purpose is long past. When it’s been successfully tampered with we usually get a terrible president. It needs to go.

The wave of protests against trump will surely be BFD when we see them eclipse him accepting accolades in the coverage of this humiliating trip.

Perhaps New York could petition to renew it’s Royal Charter and just join Canada?

Here’s What Robert Mueller Said

29 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in donald trump, mueller report, Robert Mueller Speaks, Trump 2020, Trump Corruption, Trump Downfall, Trump in 2019, Trump Russia, trump russia collusion, Trump Treason, Uncategorized

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Well it was only 10 minutes and delivered without emotion, but we finally heard directly from Robert Mueller. The full video is at the end of the post.

It’s hard to sum up how he really feels, he did provide some cover for Barr and say he wasn’t going to speak to congress. Here’s what went down

Mueller walked on and said he wasn’t taking questions and hoped to never speak in public about this again.

Then he basically disgorged his opinion of his legal mandate and goals. He cleared up who he was responsible to (mostly the Acting Deputy Attorney General) and what his mandate was. He stressed he could ONLY investigate. In other words – Mueller’s opinion of his mandate could be summed up as – He had investigative authority, but no legal teeth. The president is un-Indictable, at least by him, merely because he’s president and that’s all there is to that.

So after again thanking his team Mueller sort of underscored what he thought was the most important things in his report. It would seem to have a disregard for the present circumstance. At best it could be called forward looking.

We’re Under Attack

He stressed that there was a coordinated and elaborate attack on our 2016 Election by Russia. Both the Kremlin and some kind of private entities were involved. Wikileaks was used to launder the information and get the Russians some deniability.

He said it was done with the aim of ‘influencing” opinions and ‘to damage a candidate.’ That candidate can only have been Hillary Clinton. He didn’t speak her name, but really, who else could it have been? He repeated the interference was ‘extensive’. It seems pretty clear we saw Putin’s hand here.

Then he went to his report and specified Volume 1, which is about the Russian efforts and whether Trump coordinated with them. It was inconclusive as to direct conspiracy, but maybe not because he didn’t think Trump had tried something. He would refer to the limits of his mandate, that you can’t charge a sitting president, was the governing philosophy of why no charges were filed.

Then he specified Volume 2, which dealt with Presidential Obstruction and obstruction of the Investigation. Again he referred to his mandate and said there was no Indicting the president under seal either. So Mueller’s view is hands were tied.

With confidence he said in so many words “It’s UnConstitutional” for the Special Counsel to Indict a sitting president. He alluded to Justice Department policy as the reason that he could do nothing about Obstruction as far as charges and Indictments. He again alluded to his limited mandate as the big reason there was no charging Trump.

More than anything else he spoke of how very limited his legal mandate really was.

Over and over Mueller deferred to his mandate about not being able to Indict rather than cleared the president. He said plainly he had ‘no confidence’ the president had NOT committed a crime.

Mueller made it very clear he could not clear the president. This is about the strongest thing he could say under his interpretation of his mandate. He seemed to be saying that anyone else would be looking at getting arrested over this and confirming the broken nature of our Justice System. He seemed more concerned about the coming election than anything President Trump may have done to this point, despite saying he was prosecutable outside of Office.

It seems Mueller really wanted us to be aware he NEVER had authority to indict the president. He stated policy and law as to why HE COULD NOT INDICT OR CHARGE THE PRESIDENT, NO MATTER WHAT HE FOUND.

One curious thing he said was that since there was no method to try the president legally while he was in office he had decided he simply couldn’t charge him based on that. The decision notably was NOT because he didn’t think Trump was guilty. In fact, he seemed to be saying he thought the law shielded the president from the consequences of illegal behavior more than anything else aside from the deep concern over the next election.

He then again thanked his staff and categorized his staff and investigation were ethical and professional.

He repeated that he wasn’t taking questions.

Mueller- He’s Not a Player; He’s The Official

In essence Mueller didn’t so much punt to congress. That’s because PLAYERS punt. Mueller has cast himself (or felt locked to the role) more as the referee or some other official. So like an NFL official what he did was turn on his mic, address the crowd, explain the penalty and handed the ball to congress.

Could you say that when he hands the congress the ball on Impeachment it’s on the GOP’s own 20 yard line. Mueller’s message between the lines seems to be “You’ll easily score a field goal if not a touchdown if you pursue these charges I laid out because if he wasn’t president he’d be a criminal. He may just leave the White House for the Big House.”

Mueller may be right on about the biggest issue now that all is said and done being keeping the next election clean of Russian (and all other) interference.

And that’s what Robert Mueller said.

Here’s the whole statement

Cap’n Kirk Douglas Reacts to Black Sabbath Comparison and Review of Hundred Watt Heart Record Release Show

24 Friday May 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Black Sabbath, Great Live Acts, Hundred Watt Heart, Live Music, ozzy osbourne, Uncategorized

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One of the most successful (and nicest) people I know personally has got to be Cap’n Kirk Douglas. He was one of the many gifted musicians I met from the eclectic original players of Long Island’s East end when I went to Stony Brook University.

In my experience Kirk was always friendly and approachable, hes was welcoming of a newcomer and impressed me even then with his amazing guitar abilities. I was lucky enough to even jam with him a bunch of times. Obviously, I had my work cut out for me just keeping up. You could tell then there was something about him that set him apart musically from others. To me it seemed amazing competence and chameleon-like ability to play the right way for whatever role he took in any project.

Because at that time there were probably a dozen decent original acts from a pool of like 30 super talented people. I fooled them into thinking I was good enough to play with them and it was pretty great. It was a great time of expansion in my own musical life. Getting away from Queens for a while paid off creatively.

These days, as guitar player for The Roots he’s in many Americans living rooms weeknights laying it down with a variety of beautiful guitars. Last night I saw the first Hundred Watt Heart show. It was as at times as heavy as the single I had downloaded on the way. Guitar Driven is one way to put it.

Having only the Roots to go on I decided to do some preparation. I downloaded “I Used to be in a Circus”, the only available track as the record, Turbulent Times, only dropped today.

The song was great and honestly not what I had expected. You can hear it for yourself, but what caught my eye was what Google Music showed as the “related Artist”; Black Sabbath. The tile next to it was from Black Sabbath Volume 4, so its the older Sabbath that seems focus of the comparison

After seeing the show I sort of concur.

Some things that back up the Sabbath allusion would possibly be Kirk’s riff driven and solid. He has some Sabbath-like traits in his song writing. His vocal delivery was right on and full voiced. He delivered as hard as Ozzy in his prime (on a good night).

There’s a whole lot more to it than just that, but its not a bad thing to be compared to by any long shot. So I’m not the only one who sees something in this record.

Now, having now listened to the whole album I can see where the reviewer came up with the comparison Some of the songs have a Sabbath-like vibe and similar tone and heaviness, but Hundred Watt Heart, by intent, covers a lot more musical ground. For one thing, they don’t seem to have set out to sound like Black Sabbath at all. The similarity is Organic and stems from Kirk’s influences having some overlap with Tony Iommi’s is my guess. And while its easy and fun to compare bands, Hundred Watt Heart is actually unique. With the quality of pop music seeming to be trending down, here’s a listenable and sincere album that starts with an admission – These are in fact Turbulent Times. Why pretend things are great?

Its a solid and interesting guitar album and the songs are catch-y as Hell. While appealing and beautifully melodic, it’s confident and solid all the way around. I love the single ‘I Used to Be in a Circus” and ‘Uma’, with it’s blistering solo and brooding lyrics, might just be my favorite. It may just sound a bit like original Black Sabbath as well, but in the best possible way. To take it a step further, as a Black Sabbath fan myself, I found myself taking to this album in a big way.

The Gig

Back to the show;

An hour and 3 el presidente beers after hitting Billyburg I was immersed in what Kirk accurately described as a sonic bath. I was pumped for the whole high energy performance. It’s hard believe 3 guys made all that noise. Mark Kelley (bassist for The Roots) and Ricc Sheridan (drummer for Earl Greyhound) join him on the record and this show.

First off – SEE THIS BAND! I hate everything and I even enjoyed it.

While I would not go so far as to say he sounds like Black Sabbath and the lyrical topics seem quite different from what I’ve heard so far, I can see how the critic who made the comparison came up with it. Unassuming and powerful would how I would describe the show. No punches pulled, mostly non stop music, though he did generously acknowledge the audience a few times. The club was packed and the energy was great. The band didn’t disappoint.

Hundred Watt Heart is a live show well worth seeing. Kirk’s vocals are right on as is his playing. Not to mention, he’s still a man of the people, the price of the show was completely affordable. Music came before money and I for one appreciated it. His A-List supporting cast on bass and drums was amazing. And lets talk about New York here for a second – Having an affordable but high quality evening out in a city that EATS money is not an everyday thing.

Considering there wasn’t a bad place to watch in Williamsburg’s interesting “Baby’s All Right” it was even that much more intimate. It also featured a super cool stage. You can only hope this show comes to your town. Hundred Watt Heart was amazing live.

I’m sure when more critics hear and review it we’ll get different comparisons, but I was lucky enough to get Kirk to agree to give me a clean reaction about the Sabbath comparison on audio and he was kind enough to agree. So I didn’t tell him what the comparison was, just that it sort of surprised me.

Still, I have to thank Kirk for being completely cool about this request for a reaction. No one respects Bloggers anymore, there’s been too many bad, biased and dishonest ones. Hey, I swim with sharks, right? He could’ve just said no and that would have been just fine; but he’s always been an open and friendly guy so I was comfortable asking him to give his reaction. It was a lot easier in fact than getting the audio on youtube. The video is what it is. Its about what he said.

So here’s Cap’n Kirk Douglas, leader of Hundred Watt Heart, reacting to being compared to Black Sabbath. Its rough, but you can clearly hear us. Not a youtube expert yet.

So there you have it, Kirk’s reaction and a great little Ozzy story you wont find elsewhere.

Left to Right – The Real McTeag, Michael Grace jr (of My Favorite My Favorite) and Cap’n Kirk Douglas

Here’s a longer interview with the band from Relix –

The Bi-Polar Barr Hearing

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in donald trump, The Trump Adhocracy, Trump Russia, Trump Treason, Uncategorized, WIlliam Barr Senate Hearing

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I don’t feel like I’m alone viewing William Barr as a 2nd tier Lucas Movie Villain. He’s dishonest, dishonorable and belongs in a museum.

Today’s partisan hearing was a reflection of our bi-polar government. As senators coddled or cudgeled Barr based on party affiliation you gotta think the momentum is with the Democrats.

Sure, it’s the Senate where the GOP is in control, but this is certainly yet another cut in into the Orange flesh of the liar at 1600’s Administration.

When i tuned in it was Ernst, who gently asked about what the Russians may be up to, that friendly question from a Republican drew an evasive answer. It made him all the more unsympathetic when he was then rightly bashed by Blumenthal. Then he was coddled by Blackburn, bashed by Booker and so it went. Hirono was by far the heashest and rightly called Barr a liar.

When elaborating conspiracy theories and accepting praise from the right of course Barr looked like a victim. It was when the Democrats put the screws to him his spineless nature came right out.

Whenever questioned by a Democrat Barr’s voice was always a bit more affected if you ask me, with his regionalisms coming out. A “liars tell”?

On the topic of Foreign Adversaries who attacked our election Barr rarely seemed fully read in (this is the Attorney General mind you) and seemed to lack the competence to understand what happened or whats going on now.

Barr wasn’t good holding forth in the face of Corey Booker at all. The presidential hopeful questioned Barr’s honesty and barr had a hard time pitching any justifications. Bookers questions were damaging to the Attorney General, who SHOULD resign, but getting Barr to answer anything was always like nailing jello to a wall.

Tarheel GOP hater Tom Tillis shifted back into love-fest mode. The GOP senators had two points. It was a really gig investigation and the he, Barr, was totally justified to change (or at least obscure) its conclusions. Tillis offered a stiff defense of the way Barr has behaved as AG. He went with a numbers approach to make it as boring and obscure s possible because Math, in and of itself, really has no relation to whether something is a crime or not.

The GOP refrain was this is just a sour grapes second stab at the reputation of poor president Trump, king of victimhood.

Senator Kamala Harris asked Barr if he’d had anyone asking him to launch punitive investigations. Barr just couldn’t answer. He was more disrespectful to Harris than others. I’m not sure if it because shes running for president, a woman of color or both.

Barr chaffed a bit when he delivered up stock denials on methodology questions about his offices approach. He wouldn’t say much about what they do and less about what people think they do.

Barr tried to punt to Mueller but Harris had none of it. The next move by Barr was to try to shift responsibility to Rosenstein.

Barr didn’t distinguish himself in his knowledge of his own departments methods at all.

Mike Crapo of Idaho from the GOP side was a little less affectionate to Barr, but by no means beat him up.

Barr never raised himself to a Star Trek or Bond Villain level like his boss often does.

Any sympathy bought by Barr was immediately destroyed by the chummy conversation with Senator from Hell Ted Cruz; where Barr suddenly had full commend of methods ad could relate them in detail. Maybe its just that he sounds smart compared to Cruz?

Looking me like some sort of Texas whorehouse owner than any kind of a politician from this century Cruz was that guy we’ve all grown to hate. He still managed to stump Barr by mistake once.

Their conversation was a paranoid and unamerican trip down Kremlin Misinformation lane. I walked away wondering who pulls Cruz’s strings

Ending Round 1 Pat Leahy, Democrat of Vermont went back to questions of more relevance. Like one focused on Barr’s motives in releasing his strange 4 page letter last month. He also expressed concern and asked Barr to commit not to interfere to not interfere in any ongoing investigations. Barr was evasive and took 3 lame swipes at an answer. Leahy wasn’t too thrilled with him. It’s also not clear if Barr actually agreed NOT to interfere based on his own bizarre view of his role and powers.

Instead of just adjourning the Lindsay Graham opted for what amounted to a “Lightning Round” where it was a roulette wheel of Senators and questions

Barr was unsettled by some of this enough to start trying to dispel the idea that there were any “Underlying crimes”. He wasn’t making a lot of sense.

Then Dick Durbin of Illinois had some seriously unsettling questions about how Barr is mishandling the Trump Inaugural committee, which is mired in a multi million dollar scandal that’s looking criminal.

Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island essentially laced right in. The Democrat was slightly pre-heated and was frustrated with the way Barr was evading. He was more able to box in and nail down Barr. His line of questioning was about foreign money and Grand Jury material being suppressed. Barr came off confused. A terrible look for the Attorney General of the United States.
Klobuchar grilled Barr on whether the Mueller Report reviewed Trumps taxes, Barr claimed ignorance.

Quoting pages and passages Klobuchar tried to get some accountability from Barr. You cant get blood from a stone though, and he inartfully dodged any substantial answer.

In a final semi bombshell Klobuchar asked if the presidents conduct was consistent with his Oath of Office. Barr said it was his call that everything was cool.

Lightning Round continued with Blumenthal. He had specific questions in specific conversations that may haunt Barr later.

In general Barr spent a lot of time looking pretty damn bad. He was clueless on purpose to stonewall at times, but looking clueless just undermines the Justice Department he purports to run

Barrs most bizarre statement was putting words in Mueller’s mouth where he claimed Mueller was pretty much behind him and they barely disagree on anything. This seems ridiculous right off the bat. There’s a letter in the public record where Mueller outright questions the way Barr’s motives in mischarachterizing his report.

Lindsey Graham ended the session and promised to write a letter asking for any clarifications. GOP ass kissing was allowed in 5 second round of praise from some GOP member.

In a final petty gesture Barr described the angry letter from Mueller as ‘snitty’ and probably written by an underling. He held to the Republican line the presidents a victim in this. Forget about the idea that the president is a criminal, that’s his view of the system. That we have a designated criminal as a president,

The Two Two Faces of Sarah Huckabee Sanders

22 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in 21st Century Political Movements, 21st century religious movements, 21st century right wing political fails, donald trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sympathy for the Donald, Trump Russia, Uncategorized

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donald trump, lying, Religious fanatics, Russia, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, sarah huckabee sanders liar, Sarah Huckabee Sanders Mueller Report, Trump ad hoc government, US Politics

The Mueller Report – The Lies of Sister Sarah

We all knew that eventually proximity to Trump was going to cause Good Ol’ Gal Sarah Huckabee Sanders some problems. While I speculate one day the criminality she’s been part of will come back to haunt her I didn’t think she’d figure deeply into the Mueller Report, and she didn’t.

None the less, her talking out of both sides of her mouth was one of the first stories to ruminate through the headlines when the report, or what we’ve been allowed to see of it, dropped. Seems Sarah’s Christian values don’t include even the slightest guilt about lying unless there’s jail time involved.

And her lies werent to mitigate Trump’s insanity, she was burnishing it.

The Mueller Report showed her to be an Enabler rather than any of the authors of the Anonymous New York Times “White House Resistor” article, where the idea was to stick around at the expense to your own dignity just to keep Trump from blowing up the world.

When James Comey was fired for not dropping the Flynn Investigation Sarah had a series of May 2017 pressers (remember when we had pressers?) where she simply lied to the American People. Her repeated lie, which she’s since told some more lies about, was that her phone was ringing off the hook with grateful FBI Agents thanking her for Trump’s firing of Comey. I’m not sure why they thought she would want to hear it. I guess she took the (fictional) calls in between high 5-ing all the other FBI Agents she claimed stopped her to tell her how glad they were their boss had been fired amid a torrent of abusive comments about the Bureau itself.

When in front of Mueller Sarah actually told the truth. These were pure lies made up from whole cloth. Obviously she was parroting her boss.

Cries she be fired are now pretty universal. The Fox White House guy may even be on board with that one, he has to listen to the lies too, right? But this is how Trump likes it.

By the third week of April we’ve had 4 Pressers all year, in no regular order. This begs the question – what exactly does Sarah do these days?

From the Master Entry Why I Hate Sarah Huckabee Sanders (and Hope she Goes to Jail) begun almost 2 years ago. It’s the Internet’s most comprehensive collection of SHS insanity.

#AOC Mobile Office Experience

06 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Uncategorized

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Well it looked like I was headed to an idyllic small town in the big city moment as I walked to my local library here in Woodside to see our local Representative to United States House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the areas State Senator Michael Gianaris make a few statements and hopefully talk to them or their staffs.

Just as a reminder to those who aren’t from New York City; while she is from the Bronx and represents part of that borough, don’t forget that she also represents Woodside and some nearby parts of Queens as well. So she’s OUR rep. It’s safe to say she’s very, very popular here.

I walked over at precisely 230 in a snappy mood. I had shaved with a fresh razor and worn a nice a very ‘spring’ button down green short sleeved collared shirt. It was that nice out; and I wanted to be taken seriously should I talk to anyone. It surely wouldn’t matter in Queens anyway, but I was ready to make a decent impression and at least try not come off crazy just from how I looked. So no Yankee hat either.

It sure seemed like I was strolling leisurely towards a Mayberry in New York moment. A glimpse of one of the many local neighborhoods that makes up New York City. A quiet, beautiful day with seemingly less noise from the overhead 7 Train. It was like, hey; here’s my government right up the block waiting to talk to me! This was going to be outright bucolic!

Roosevelt Avenue side of Library like any other day

Then I saw the OTHER side of the library! There were all sorts of people, numbering maybe a thousand and some change in my quick glance of the line up the next two blocks. Behind the short, organized very front of the line, block one was sort of four or five people thick, whereas block 2 was just all across the sidewalk. Everyone seemed upbeat and happy.

People weren’t likely going to get to see her and they had to know it and they still had concerns worth just the chance of talking to anyone working for her or Gainaris on this day. I was sort of proud, It was a throng that had showed up out of a belief in our democracy. Right here in New York City. There had to be plenty of Small d Democrats out there too as well as the part y loyalist and huge AOC fans. There was simply just too many people.

It felt good to see. Not to mention the office doesn’t cease to exist in just two hours. People who didn’t get to see anyone today, if indeed anyone didn’t, are far from cut off from those offices or their services. The offices will still be open this week as usual.

So lets face it, as far as turnout was concerned this was a huge success and the biggest event here since last months Saint Patrick’s Day for All Parade. Looks like a lot of people will get direct access to their district office people today. Thats great. This is a working class neighborhood, we need to have weekend office hours for our politicians. Seems they get it. Based on the turnout we need a lot more of them. Here’s hoping this new tradition takes root. I would think. however, there’s just no way theyre going to see these people in 2 hours or even 8. But who knows?

Clearly, however, I wasn’t going to get to speak to anyone today.

the Skillman Ave side of the library revealed hundreds if not a thousand more people

That’s fine, the offices are open most of the time at its usual location and my concerns will be relayed there by phone. In fact in light of the crush it might be best to try to talk to them later.

I also voted on an informal poll about allocation of resources in my city council area. It’s Yes on the Hydroponics Science lab for the local junior high school from me!

But I saw AOC and got to hear her speak, while i could hear her by straining the camera didn’t get the video. It would have been nice to have 3 minutes for reference and see what the news carries instead, but she’ll be back. I’ll have other chances.

When I got there she was wrapping up what couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes with the press between her and Gianaris based on it being almost over at 2:32 pm when I strolled in. I heard her defend having been a bartender against the attacks from the right that seem to find this disqualifying. I’ve been a bartender to so I related.

So here’s a couple of pictures I got, only to be seen here for now.

NY State Senator Michael Gianaris and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at Woodside Library April 6, 2019

NY State Sen Michael Gianaris and Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Woodside Library April 6, 2019

I’m a local and it’s my library so I simply walked in and listened to AOC speak to the press spray. It’s MY library, so I had the only press credential I needed. FOX was the only news cube I saw on a mic or camera, but there were a couple of cameras there. Lots of audio mics too. It was intimdiating momentarily to see the News happenng right in front of you. I enjoyed being a firsthand witness.

So like I said, its my Library Branch and I have every right to go there anytime its open. It was totally cool. I belonged there anyway technically. Besides democarcy takes place in public buildings, why not a place of learning? It was the perfect forum and just big enough (not that we wouldnt a new bigger library!).

It was just fluke-y Real McTeag luck that l got there in time to hear her speak a little to the press spray while many hundreds waited outside. And the Real McTeag attitude that walked me through that door like I belonged there without being bothered or asked for my card (which I had). maybe it was because I was so well-groomed today, I’ll note that for the future. I also just had the best timing ever.

There was one law enforcement officer in a uniform I didn’t recognize. It could have been uniformed Secret Service or some sort of New York State Police Officer (Reactions by horrible people on AOC’s Twitter threads show that’s warranted). Validated my concern for AOC. Shes’s become a hated symbol to the wacky Right and the Trumpists. Glad to see someone watching out for her. She’s the future.

Meanwhile it remained Woodside. Lots of people had an agenda that only included the library. Some never even stopped reading or using the computer. The library remained a library during the press availability, held on an elevated area where there’s some reading tables and shelves of books. Thats Queens, right? Some people just don’t give a shit. At ant rate the operation of the Library was not all that impacted either, so that was great since the neighborhood needs it.

Leaving mostly the crowd was locals. Sure, I saw a few unfamiliar face-lifts here and there. I guess a few people came here on safari to Queens from Manhattan just to see Ocasio-Cortez. The very first person I saw walking out of the library, occupying the front of the line, had a very Un-Woodside, more Manhattan-like air about them, but hey, it’s their government too. She can stand on line and discuss her issues just like anyone else I guess. Didn’t really bother me. Theres was still a huge amount of obvious locals there on top of any people just drawn to her star.

It was also a shot in the arm to the image of poor old Woodside,

So I’ll be contacting both representatives offices directly.

Talking to the Neighbors Later

In conversation with my neighbors where they relax in the alley everyone was proud she’d come to town and was proud of her. One older hispanic lady was the hesitant person, who supported AOC fully but was dogged by a feeling she was moving too fast and maybe being disruptive to a fault. She seemed really pleased and surprised when I said I considered her a pace setter and that great things had already come from electing her. We both agreed she had already done a couple of things to advance women. The multi racial group that compromised my neighborhoods version of the King of the Hill behind the garage beer gaggle all had positive feelings enjoying the added boost of pride that came from a member fo Congress showing up 500 feet away. Who wouldn’t?

Til now that woman just walked right by me in the hallways. Maybe we’d said hi. Now we’re sort of friends. To me this shows AOC brings people together.

A small success for governing on the most local of levels.

By 420 pm when it was about over despite the event scheduled to wind down it seemed to be going strong still with the overflow now on Roosevelt Ave as well. So while I’m not a professional at counting crowds it seems she’s not going to need to lie about just how many people came out to see her. Whatever the real number is its impressive for a 2 hour Mobile Office visit to part of the District.

Just in case anyone care tomorrow consists of cheap seats with with a buddy to see the Mets play the Nats at Citifield. You already know I like the Yankees, but I live in Queens, and hey DeGrom is pitching and I still love Bobby Cano.

Thats it from Queens for now.

PUNK’D! The Misleading Barr Letter

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in donald trump, mueller report, PUNK'D - The Misleading Barr Letter, Trump Ad-hoc Governing, Trump Corruption, Trump crime family, Trump Russia, Uncategorized

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barr letter, Barr letter bullshit, Barr letter illegal, barr letter not legitimate, Barr memo, CNN, Fox News, is the barr letter legitimate, Justice Department, Media FAILS, Msnbc, Mueller, mueller report, trump, Trump crime family, Trump idiot, trump lies, Willam Barr

Was it all just a dream? Did we just imagine the world was once a far more decent place where the guilty were caught and punished? Perhaps so but the dreams have darkened and the waking up consists of screaming in fear these days. How did we get here?

Apparently the flaws in our system have just been piling up in a quantum manner while our risk averse leaders have ignored problems or made them worse. Right now we’re dealing with the seemingly straight forward but actually completely inappropriate Barr Letter.

Whether Barr is allowed to draw conclusions or make decisions on prosecution in this matter is somewhat nebulous. It’s going to be the rest of Trump’s term to determine if any of the things that happened this weekend were legal. The Watergate and Whitewater Special PROSECUTORS had the latitude to draw conclusions and present sealed indictments right to the House Judiciary Committee. Why’s this time different?

Describing the piece of paper Barr gave the American people and the media as a letter is generous. The four page summary of Mueller’s work is more of a memo, but we’ll leave that alone.

It Was A Set Up

The media got played on this one. The Trump people know how to lie and they excelled on this occasion. Knowing that this day was coming they opted for the easiest con of all- Punk Us with a fake release of a non Mueller Report and let the media self-discredit.

The media went straight into Shiny Object mode like we’ve seen so many times and became hypnotized on the Memo/Letter as though it were a report. They had spent 2 years preparing for what seemed to be a timebomb of a story and the teams of pundits were sitting around with the most deadly thing of all; just a little bit of knowledge.

Rather than blast Attorney General Barr for making conclusions he possibly had no right to make they just reported on the letter like it was a bunch of conclusive facts. It’s almost like they set themselves up to fail. Why no one really started talking about the questionable nature of the letter/memo for a whole day is something we all need to wonder about.

The Mueller Report remains a mystery. We need to see it and soon. The American People paid for this report. Trusting it to Barr is UnAmerican.

No one has elected Barr into the Executive Branch, something Trump likes to point out about Mueller. He doesnt have the authority or the Integrity to be sole interpreter and Guardian of the Mueller Report.

Congress needs to act now to release the Mueller Report, more or less in full, in the next 30 days.

The WordPress AdWords Monetization Fiasco

19 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in My Wordpress Monetization Experience, Uncategorized, Wordpress Monetization Fiasco

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Adwords doesnt work, do people just hate ads?, fake news explained, how to make money on the internet, jake paul douchebag, logan paul douchebag, Lying on the internet, monetization pitfalls, should i monetize my blog, the honest blogger, what do i make per click?, what NOT to do on a monetized blog, who Trolls are, Wordpress Content theft, Wordpress Monetization Fiasco

Well I finally took the plunge and monetized my blog and 1 year later I WILL NOT be renewing. Why not? Well for one thing though I blogged my ass off I had perhaps the very worst year of views ever. Powered off an anomalously high day with a couple of thousand views i figured my time was finally here and maybe I could generate enough income to get the premium features to pay for themselves. So I had a modest goal going in

And Then What Happened?

For one thing I found theres some content thieves out there. They repost my blog word for word with pictures and siphon off an unknown amount of views. I found two sites doing this. Seems to me if i could find this out so could WordPress, after all I had bought in, right? It was costing THEM money too.

It didnt matter they never went after them.

Next WordPress Market Re-Aligned itself to be a ‘For Your Small Business’ website and advertised heavily as such.
This was great at driving away curious people. Why go to WordPress for original journalism when thats where you book a haircut or look for a lawn guy?

WordPress could have run TWO campaigns like so many other companies, and pushed the original content enough to keep people engaged. But this didn’t happen. In part WordPress impeded me.

Your ‘Income’ per click is anywhere from 1/3 to 1/65th of a cent depending on factors that seem to change in a very whimsical way. In my highest month of served ads it was just a bad month for getting paid,inexplicably as far as hearing from WordPress went. I made just a few pennies.

That was the month I wrote the most and even used some SEO tricks by writing about trending topics. Im not overly proud of “Katy Perry Kills a Nun”, but I did enjoy writing it and it helped me expand my game.

On the positive side I learned a lot, so its Ice Cream Flavored Dog Food and I’m out a hundred bucks. Not the worst thing that happened this year by a long shot. I’m not bitter, it was justifiable as a hundred dollar lesson in professionalism and creative writing that was mostly self taught. So I’m not bitter about it. I still get a thousand views a month, so people hear me.

What I got out of the monetization experience was the perception of a deadline and the hopes of breaking even. I wrote more and now I had become a bit more self critical. I learned how to be something of a better writer. I forensically improved all my old posts and the new ones are of a higher quality. For that it was worth it.

Was I Throttled?

I’m not so full of myself as to think my message was so powerful or so strong forces wanted me silenced. More likely I had willingly paid for an Indentured Servitude where the more I wrote the more WordPress owns and the more people will simply visit and maybe read a couple of articles. However, theres a possibility they had business reasons to not push me as hard as they had when they kept it all. 2019’s views will show whether or not people still consider blogs in general useful or interesting outside things like an independent movie reviews, which fare better than most topics at getting clicks.

A Roulette Wheel of Information and Payment

People are far more wary of the information they take in these days and that in itself is good. Looking back into the very recent past you can see how and why the internet returned to be a highly suspect place and blogs got BEATEN to death because Fake News and Outrage sell.

Text blogs were especially vulnerable to subversion or being a kremlin misinformation campaign. Video blogs have sound which betrays things like Russian Accents. In the future I plan on letting you all see me and bringing some of this to youtube.

Suddenly it occurs to you how misinformation happens. If you are living in Russia and have a computer you can launch a right wing hoax story aimed at pure blog hits Because in Russia 100 bucks is about how much the average person earns in a given week. So you’ll create some fake pictures and tell grandiose lies and it’ll pay off. This is where a lot of the “Dying Hillary” memes and stories came from. It only needed to attract enough hits and stay live long enough to generate income for a 3rd world guy. The fact that they got over so badly on so many American is just an indictment of our education system

Trust is Broken Since 2016

Trolling is just too big these days. People leave their “Punk’d Filters” up more these days and that’s a good thing, but there’s still a lot of people who just will stare at the shiny object. This blog is an older standard of journalism. I’d rather be broke and honest than a rich liar.

Fake News Sells, the world is filled with people who have no morals, love attention and have a blog or a youtube channel. Their goal is to go viral. My goal was simply to develop a core or readers. I could do this by going FULL Breibart/ Infowars and making stuff up. It’s just not me.

In the past people like Alex Jones would simply have gotten a book contract to write (fairly imaginative) sci-fi books and would have been a mediocre version of Philip K Dick. Instead everyone is pulling a Stockholm Syndrome Cult as their internet guise.

I’m no Alex Jones. I’m the opposite. I’m a real skeptic who thinks the worlds round. Im not going to turn the blog into a store and sell vitamins just because I could. I wont hurt average people just to tell a story or make some cash.

This blog sometimes has very few answers. Sometimes I just tru to ask a question. This blog encourages you to disagree and comment. This blog publishes corrections, this blog leaves up bad predictions. I’m not trying to be perfect or viral, I just want to add some truth and supportable opinions into the conversation. I dont need to be monetized to do this.

Dana Loesch, the Food Babe and a million liars who we can sort of think of as Blogger versions of Alex Jones have rightly made people wary. Blogs don’t enjoy immediate trust anymore. Rightly so but it kills the honest blogger. All media and journalism is taking a hit and people are likely ONLY reading their official partisan blogs. Or freaking out in real time on Twitter. I do it too. (@therealmcteag)

If you want to try monetizing for awhile forensically murder all blog posts with profanities. The only piece of advice I got was “Family Friendly” stuff was easiest to promote and garnered lots of views. I’m only just so family friendly.

This revelation explains the existence of Jake Paul and his equally annoying brother Logan Paul. That’s what the internet’s selling so far as accumulating a lot of clicks goes. Yes, the song “It’s Every Day, Bro” is as meaningless as it sounds. The lyrics make no sense at all. The chorus is just a bunch of words and the videos really isnt quite soft core porn so much as lots of half-naked young people of both genders. So that’s whats really hot and getting promoted. They dont curse, so its Family Friendly.

So WHY am I Here?

Why Im Still Here, sans Compensation, is because I like to write and my point of view is sort of unique. I’ve seen some of my humour sucked right up in a way thats too close to the blog (and too close in time) for the writers at some of the late night shows not to be pilfering jokes from me. Big Fuckin Deal, but hey, maybe offer me a job as a writer?

The Biggest People Play the Worst. This last year saw Star Trek outright stealing stories and ideas from Gonzo Video Game creators for no other reason than they thought they could. The Star Trek Discovery Writers are real shit bags for that one. Just hire the guy and pay him

So thats where its at. I’ll still be around, holding JJ Abrams feet to the fire and pointing out how insane Trump is, but I guess the dozen dollars I was able milk out of this will forever be WordPress money, because you have to make 100 bucks before they pay out. Ok, while no big deal we’re talking 10 years at a minimum of 100 bucks to get anything back. Maybe this was to fight the proliferation of fake news and the incentive of just 10 bucks to people in anywhere including Somalia (thanks for the views, Somalia! Seriously, this is a shout to whoever keeps reading from there. You can come out in the comments if you want!

So anyway for me its a 10 to 1 loser. This blogs pretty venerable now, 50,000 views, maybe id have gotten over the hump in less time but I’m not buying.

So when my HUGE view days happen I’ll get my endorphin rush and I’ll feel satisfied, but the rules of Profitability here are too costly to my journalistic integrityAnd my personal ethics. Roger Stone is wrong, it’s better to be sort of a nobody then be infamous. I have dignity and he never had any.

And damn it, I never tried to play the family friendly game and I never will.

I’m gonna continue to be me. This domain name may end up coming with me somewhere else as Im no longer totally sold on WordPress as my best platform.

In the words of Ozzy Osbourne- You Don’t Need a Ticket to Fly With Me, I’m Free!

Trump’s Bizarre, Not Good, Self Contradicting State of the Union

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in Bizarre SOTU CLaims, Can Donald Trump Read?, One Bigly Head Scratcher from Trump's Bizarre, Dark and Rambling State of the Union, Southern Border Wall, State of the Union Reactions 2019, Trump's Bizarre, Not Good, Self Contradicting State of the Union, Uncategorized

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Anti-reproductive rights, Crime in America, D-Day, guns in america, Hitler, Humour, ms-13, Not Good, NYPD, Self Contradicting State of the Union, SOTU 2019, State of the Union address, treason, trump, Trump's Bizarre, World War 2, World War II

In a long and rambling speech focused mostly on World War 2 Trump spent more time calling American Woman murderers than he did condemning Hitler. Then something sort of bizarre happened. Trump spoke of his need for a Wall and said “Walls always Work, they just work, they work, okay? Walls Work” and left that out there as some kind of immutable truth. This doesn’t really sit well in a speech centered around the D-Day Invasion, which by all accounts was a bad day for Walls.

Just to get it out of the way – the State of the Union was mostly a badly read history lesson on how World War 2 went down in Trumpian terms. In 2019.

He was careful not to bash Hitler in his extended comments about the conflict. I guess he figures that there were very fine people on both sides of the war. He mostly saved his condemnations for American Women. Immigrants fared no better in his grim speech. Seems Hitler was off-limits though, even talking about the Normandy Invasion.

He rambled on a lot about the need for his racist Southern Border Wall. Xenophobia was front and center. A lot of pure fear. The constant refrain was about the impenetrability of his proposed Wall. Its supposedly goiing to end the opiate scourge. A lot of lies about the pills made on Ohio coming over the border from Mexico just dont add up.

Then in the next snorting breath he was on to D-Day, where we attacked and destroyed Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, essentially undercutting his own point. And then really dwelling on it.

Contradictory Statements on whether “Walls Work”

While he managed to talk about D-Day at length on several occasions Trump was demonstratively ignorant of the fact that the Normandy Invasion was a pretty bad day for the idea that Walls, in this case backed up with mines, artillery, machine guns, aircraft and thousands of defenders, actually work at all.

If you’ve seen the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan you see the ineffectiveness of a wall. They don’t keep out the Wall-Hating Americans who blow the damn thing apart. In that case the wall was 5 years in the making and lasted for about 5-12 hours. And again, that’s WITH wanton use of deadly force.

Another ironic moment may be when Trump acknowledged Buzz Aldrin, a man whose journeyed through the “Impenetrable Van Allen Belts” to the moon. I’m not sure why the only conspiracy BLOTUS doesn’t believe is the moon landing, but apparently as far the Moon and World War 2 he was mostly factual, if grandiose (as always).

I wish someone with a bigger platform than me can mention the asinine nature of segueing from “Walls Work” to D-Day in same bad speech. I will not sue you, I’ll just throw shade. This ironic point shouldn’t be totally lost.

In other areas it was just a mash-up of badly read words. He was not snorting as much as usual, but as always his eyes looked like the bleached, prolapsed assholes of spray tanned porn stars. Nixonian body language was on display, but thats always been this presidents style.

All Talk No Policy

While he made a lot of assertions, and even found time to speculate on violent crime without ever crediting the Police for their good work in the murder he cited, a gang beef on a 7 Train Platform solved in less than 24 hours with the prime suspect in custody by his hometown Police Department, our own NYPD. Not one word of hope beyond his wall. Lots of fear about MS-13, not an ounce of context or praise for the great police job the NYPD and its amazin g Detectoves pulled off. Vulgarian Trump can’t speak of the police without urging them to be brutal or oppressive so they get left out of the speech and just don’t get any credit. MS-13 got repeated mentions and may have been levated to the biggest public threat ever with wild rhetoric. I live 4 stops from the murder, I’m not scared any more than I was before it. Mostly because of the great professional police force we have in this town. I think its a great cae for state taxes, theyre so much more qualified than the Orlando Deputies I simply feared rather than respected.

When talking about terrorists we’ve droned Trump said on a couple of occassions “We’ve KILLED them! We KILLED THEM!” I think we all prefered what every other president in history has said about terroists who getthemselves killed “We’ve bought them to Justice”

The meandering screed of misleading lies about the some recent reproductive laws didn’t go well with the half-hearted circus ringleader to the record number of women elected. Of the 190 women elected only 13 are Republicans though, and slamming all women with falsehoods on their right to choose just hung in the air like a drunkards fart in a still pub.

In many parts he free-styled and lost the thread. When back on the teleprompter he suffered from what sounded like his dentures slipping and some really emotionless outright reading when his mouth got ahead of his brain.

Pelosi will probably win the day tomorrow as Trump will surely meltdown and start hatefully tweeting in minutes or hours and lose any “Win” he got out of what I’m gonna call a generationally bad and poorly delivered SOTU.

The Maroon 5 Superbowl Halftime show at least had some brevity, I clocked Trump at a near even 90 minutes.

Biggest Scare – The Designated Survoivor was Rick Perry.

Heres some some scenes from a movie we should maybe rename – “The Day The Democratic President And The Military Proved Walls Don’t Work at All”

Don’t Trust Sketchy Tulsi Gabbard

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by therealmcteag in 2020 Democrats, Don't Trust Sketchy Tulsi Gabbard, Russian Election Hack 2016, Russian Human Rights Violations, Suspected Russian Assets, Uncategorized

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americans who like assad, anti-gay activists, anti-lgbt politicians, david duke, louise mensch on tulsi gabbard, people with weird syria ideas, politicians in pro wrestling hall of fame, Soft on Genocide, trump russia collusion, tulsi gabbard anti LGBT, tulsi gabbard anti-choice, tulsi gabbard assad, tulsi gabbard conservative, tulsi gabbard harespeech, Tulsi gabbard homophobe, Tulsi Gabbard Kremlin Asset, Tulsi Gabbard opposes Roe v Wade, tulsi gabbard putin, tulsi gabbard republican, tulsi gabbard sketchy

Having a weird name and coming from Hawaii is not an obstacle to the presidency. Hatespeech, on the other hand? That might be enough. Today Tulsi Gabbard’s needless campaign for president rocked into day 2 by putting all Gabbards flaws on display. Rather than own, explain and apologize Gabbard simply showed how two-faced she is. She regrets what she said but retains the Intolerant beliefs.

Tulsi Gabbard is the kind of person you would call “Sketchy” if you had to work with her. She’s expressed a lot of bad-hearted opinions with one common thread – everything she’s saying she regrets saying (notice I’m not saying ‘regrets believing’) is outright Intolerant.

Be it who you should love or what to do with lady-parts, Tulsi Gabbard had ideas that are way out in the woods by Democratic standards. You could make a decent case she should probably be kicked out of the party.

She’s Weak on Genocidal Regimes

Who likes Assad and doesn’t have a weird tie to Putin? Just sayin’….

Don’t feel bad, she’s fooled a lot of people, but the lights getting brighter and people are catching on.

She’s In This For the Long Run, But Not to Win

Tulsi Gabbard is like a pro-wrestler. It’s in keeping with our president, who is in the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.

One day Tulsi Gabbard might just have trouble explaining just how a conservative republican claiming to be a Democrat generates enough campaign money to fly this Spruce Goose of a political career. Who wants to give money to a Democrat who doesn’t support fully a woman’s right to choose and is on the Outs with her states LGBT Community in a Big Way?

I think she’s in it with the Russians. It really makes more sense than “Anti-Abortion Anti-Gay Democrat keeps getting Elected”

It’s more likely people who see her will google something like “Whats up with sketchy Tulsi Gabbard” than will go to donate.

My Theory- She’s a Kremlin Pawn

Shes only in this to bring discourse down. One of the few people I try to actively ignore (and will return to doing so after I finish this post). She’s often in line with Putin. She might just not be on the side of Uncle Sam, the USA and what’s right. That’s right folks. That’s what I’m saying. If she’s so poorly spoken she has to excuse a bunch of intolerant down-punching hatespeech things aren’t going to get better….ever.

And she’s in no way a Democrat. Joe Manchin has more left wing integrity. I basically comes down to this- If you had the enthusiasm to go out making stupid statements about who makes wedding cakes for who and why only some people should get married you’re just not a Democrat. You weren’t 12 years ago and you’re not now. I wish I could say “nice try,” but that’s too generous. Just watch her unspool Kremlin propaganda like its true on Russia TV, the only media outlet that really covers her, and you’ll know she should never be president.

Her Kremlin mission is to hijack debates and keep the conversation as stupid and angry as possible.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Strange Take On Apologies

She regrets speaking Hatefully about Gays but makes sure to tell us that her personal views have not changed. That’s a Non Apology and an attempt to have it both ways. And as far as the topic of Abortion? Again her personal feelings remain unchanged, but she regrets speaking hatefully about it.

Todays news brings us news unlikable and hard to figure Tulsi Gabbard continues to strive for ‘Worst Candidate Since Christine O’Donnell” territory by having a presser that could be described as “Trumpian” in its hypocrisy.

Why did Tulsi Gabbard apologize to the LGBTQ (& whatever I missed) community? The answer is “to divide us”

Quite simply because Tulsi’s core beliefs are conservative republican. Born to a conservative GOP wheel shes hated on women and gays but couldn’t strike enough hateful notes to make it in the Republican Party.

An early fan of Trump who never slams him and almost joined the administration (I’m sure the party intervened) Gabbard’s record on how she feels about how you’re born remains somewhat Third Reich-ian.

While she understands you may need that abortion her personal has always been pretty close to ‘Its murder’.

Shes Woefully Short on Qualifications

Because the idea of spending more than a few sentences explaining just how unqualified Tulsi Gabbard is to be president I’m just going to say she’s a mere member of the House of Representatives, not a state governor or US Senator. It would be unheard of to put her in the Oval Office.

How unqualified is Tulsi Gabbard for the presidency? Despite 6 years in office in the House of Reps she’s absolutely less qualified than even the right wings favorite person to hate- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to sit in the Oval Office. Ocasio-Cortez for her part has more policy nd better ides as well nothing to apologize for. And she’s not trying to do anything but represent her district well. Tulsi Gabbard should do the same.

Tulsi Gabbard is a fake Democrat and bad politician who should 1- cease running for president 2- stay off Russia TV 3- should strongly consider resigning

UPDATE- Tulsi Gabbard is now endorsed by David Duke, former KKK Grand Wizard.

I again call upon her to quit.

Trump’s Horrific 2018 – From “Fear” to Insanity

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by therealmcteag in The Year in Trump, This Year in Trump, Trump 2018 year in review, Trump GIVES soldiers MAGA hats, Trump in 2019, Trump Shutdown, Trump's 2018 in Review, trump's horrific 2018, Uncategorized

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2018 year in review, fake maga hats given to soldiers, Mueller Probe, trump 2018 metdown, Trump 2018 year in review, trump 2019 predicitions, trump 2019 problems, Trump 2020, trump gave soldiers maga hats, Trump Hitler, Trump in Trouble, Trump melt down, trump meltdown, trump visits troops, Trump Year in Review 2018, trump's horrific 2018

Stumbling into 2018 things already weren’t going well for Trump and his lackeys. It was in fact a year of serious decline for the Administration’s already bad image. As we end out the year the president’s in a tenuous place both with the American People and the Law.

Let’s review!

True to form, by the end of January the president had managed to offend almost everyone, never deviating from dark speeches where he would always claim to be a victim. He kept up his usual disrespect and trashed dying John McCain non stop among other despicable acts and statements.

As I pointed out, the year really didn’t start well, coming off failures like the months long Roy Moore debacle. Hopes weren’t high this year would be any better. For one thing, there was no course correction and a terrible atmosphere of disdain for the president became the norm. Calls for Unity we would have seen from any other administration were replaced by simply demonizing all enemies, real or perceived.

Most say he’s been a mess since the mid-term election, but anyone reading here knows the “New Level” of insanity started with the drop of the book ‘Fear’ and the “Anonymous White House Staffer” Op-Ed. I started documenting the intensifying crazy behaviors as soon as I detected them starting with the posts leading up to his disastrous 9-11 that just kept getting worse and just before as he freaked out over Woodward’s book.

The Tightly Wound Spring

It began as an unstable year but American’s had at least started developing a thicker skin to the antics of the president, who was forever rubbing salt.

2018 went awful from a publicity and legal/ impeachment stand point. If you just look at the calendar you can track the Mueller Probe “Island Hopping” from one scandal and crime to the next; hive-ing off prosecutions to other bodies, like the Southern District of New York or the DC District Attorney. Each time getting closer to the president.

By Opening Day of Baseball season the Chaos was constant. The president tweeted conspiracies regularly, engaged in pointless political shit talking and pouted angrily publicly and privately.

Summer of Scam

Between tanking on lay-up special elections to botching attempts at policy the summer was shocking, but things seemed to have a pattern. The president would hear something, blow up and make a bad decision. All the while lying about swirling clouds of scandalous garbage at the edge of ‘Trump-world’

Then something strange happened about the same time summer ended. People started flipping as other were found guilty and some Trump associates start to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller as still others started heading to jail.

Maybe the lowest summer moment was mid July’s Treason Summit in Helsinki. Fresh off trashing our nations allies and NATO he unadvisedly went to hob-nob with Putin having done no preparation. He also freaked us all out when we found out he’d spent over a half hour unsupervised with Putin. No one likes the idea of him and Putin alone together cavorting. So that angered lots of people.

In the press conference afterwards Trump fell all over himself praising Putin, who was standing approvingly just a pace away. Trump spent a lot of time casting aspersion on the idea the Russians meddled in the 2016 election, to the Kremlin’s delight, and despite the US Intelligence community universally blaming them.

Siding with our biggest geo-political enemies over the CIA pissed people off good. He was so awash in criticism he made Orwellian attempts to alter the record and Un-Say things. None of it worked and he looked like a bigger liar than ever.

He saw his lowest ever approval ratings after that. Then he set some new lows.

Legends of the Downfall

Trump seems to have taken an emotional nosedive about 2 days before the anniversary of 9-11, a day that Trump has co-opted politically many times with many lies. The cable news shows were buzzing with advance quotes and outtakes from Bob Woodward’s book “Fear”.

In the book Woodward painted the president as angry and sub-juvenile. The book also provided multiple examples of people in a panic reversing course on presidential actions and attempting to muzzle their boss. One nominal cabinet member grabbed papers off the president’s desk to prevent perceived tragic mistakes.

Fear sported tales of breakroom hate rants by everyone from Cabinet Secretaries to the lowest coffee boy, serious backstabbing and a toxified White House where staffers try to filter information flow to a TV obsessed president. Criminal ineptitude and professional incompetence were the only constants in White House operations.

It sounded like a tale from the Last 10 Days of the Third Reich and started an Internal Witch Hunt that we heard about off and on, but never seemed to yield any results. The firings and chaos started ramping up.Whether or not it led to the Chief of Staff, former General Kelly to leave is up in the air.

President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit, Friday, July 7, 2017, in Hamburg. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Chief of Staff Fiasco happened on the same moment Trump woke up and started tweeting sweet music to Putin’s ears. An undiscussed (outside Kremlin Propaganda) idea to withdraw all US troops from Syria. The reason? Unclear days later. It cost Trump his Secretary of Defense as we all saw a scathing “I Quit” letter hatemailed right to the president. Mattis didn’t even use a closing salutation, he just signed his name at the end.

The Winter of the Malcontent

As Fall turned to winter the shortening of the days lead to long cold nights of Americans actually paying attention the News, especially on sports-deprived weeknight’s and a series of ‘back to back to back’ fails.

The fact there’s really nothing much going on in the world of sports coinciding with this new, more brittle and overtly angry tone is probably not so great for Trump. More people are bound to notice.

There was some fairly credible talk of Trump blasting off by snorting Adderall in mid December that made all too much sense and was an uncomfortable parallel to Hitler no one failed to see.

December has been one long disaster for Trump. His beginners luck hadn’t had much effect to begin with and now, almost 2 full years in, the lack of professionalism is becoming more than just a little annoying.

Early in the month former President George HW Bush passed away and the biggest topic was whether Trump would be even allowed to attend the funeral. He was ultimately allowed to attend, after extracting a promise not to be criticized in exchange for his agreeing not to speak at the event. No one wanted him there. He didn’t want to be there. There was no way out of it. He handled it horribly.

At the event Trump was inappropriate the whole time, aware of the scornful side eye he was drawing from all living presidents after he flung the overcoat he should have left in the car to a bewildered Military Honor Guard Member.

Sitting at the end of the row as though he were on a toilet he looked isolated, alone and distracted. Several gaffes in prayer and when to stand or kneel followed. Trump’s clueless in a church, even a non secular one. The whole thing plays well to Black Sabbath music.

Days later he blamed the people of California for the deadly wildfires they’re experiencing in a series of deranged lies. Trump shamed the locals for not raking the vast forests clean each year. This just sounded nuts and people noticed. He’s remained consistent on this, supporting it with numerous lies.

And he literally spent Christmas telling kids that there no Santa Claus. In fact he said believing in Santa Claus was “marginal” for 7 year olds. He didn’t miss a chance to be a complete jerk at any time in December. Thankfully the months almost over.

Late December saw people’s opinions of the president bottoming out. It came out that one particularly bad day on Wall Street was triggered in the Oval Office when Trump had hard to like Mnuchin call up all the top banks to tell them there was no impending collapse of the market. This is like getting a phone call out of the blue from the local utility company to tell you that the water isn’t poison. It unnerved people and now we’re hearing that Mnuchin and the Fed Chairman are going to walk the plank next as the president fumes over a conflicted stock market that’s actually pretty far out of his control . It was a very bad idea to use the day-to-day market as a measure of success for any president. He did so anyway and now he’s freaking out.

People’s skins weren’t going to thicken anymore. A mass White House defection of staffers was either a House Cleaning or a bunch of Flights of fear, no one can tell. It doesn’t matter. The fact simply was the White House sucked to work at and the president was capricious.

Shutdown

The government shutdown over the border walls five days old and its the same bad negotiating we’ve become used to. He’s drawn a line in the sand and wont back off. That line is 5 billion bucks for his insane wall. Then he lied about it, saying that government employees were glad he was so resolute and wanted the shut down to continue til he got the Wall.

This doesn’t look like its going to be resolved anytime soon.

Politicizing the Military

Then there’s the Christmas visit to the troops. He had to go after the media criticized the fact that every commander-in-chief since George W Bush had visited our combat troops early in their presidencies. Draft Evading President Bone Spurs looked like a flat-out coward. He didnt want to go, but there was no way out of it so he showed up pissed and acted like a child most of the time. Dark and horrible as Black Sabbath lyrics yet again.

The pukeworthy speeches to the military, where he told them they would soon defend walls ‘at home’ were of course wrong. Also; the mission he spoke of, deploying the troops inside the United States, is probably illegal. It was blatant politicization of soldiers that American’s aren’t supposed to be comfortable seeing.

While he was there for merely three hours and didn’t venture far from the airport he managed to lie to the troops about their pay. He claimed he’d given then a huge pay raise because it had been over 10 years since they were last given a raise. This was a lie 10 years thick as they’d been given raises every year and the last year was not substantially different. It was a bad and easily disprovable lie in front of people who totally knew better. I would say that makes it a bit crazier.

I guess they knew he was wrong about them not getting a raise and I’m not sure they liked being lied to. Then some brand new MAGA hats showed up in the hands of some privates who just happened to have them with them when the president literally showed up out of the blue. Remember, the visit was unannounced.

I predict it will surface that the Trump people were just handing them to the dumber soldiers who didn’t know it was a violation of regulations and unethical. Every hat looks brand spanking new. Every hat appeared unworn and was folded the same way. Only one variation of the hat was seen and as we know there’s a dozen variations because Trump just keeps the money from that. So some people are in trouble and will be peeling potatoes for that.

New Year, New Fear?

We’re hearing more and more taped conversations, tweets and crazy statements where Trump sounds like a Mob Boss with Traumatic Brain Injury. You don’t need to be a mobster or a cop, you only need to have seen the first 2 Godfather movies. It was that blatant. From running down law enforcement to calling Michael Cohen, one time Consigliere and fixer to Trump turned cooperating witness against him, ‘a rat’.

The cabinet seems to be morphing, firings outstrip the ability to replace people and the short-staffed government was shuttered due to the presidents complete inability to deal with any criticism from his political right. Three deals to keep the Government open were approved until right-wing pundits criticized them. Each in turn was passed but the president backed out of his promises and didn’t sign them at the last moment each time. Most legislators gave up and left town, as did Trump’s family who jumped right on a plane to Florida to get away from him.

So the president ends the year screaming at the walls and hate-tweeting alone in DC due to his own ineptitude and refusal to negotiate. He doesn’t want to be there, but he can’t leave on the thin chance he gets a budget thrown on his desk, so hes stuck. And he hates it, so he’s pouting.

During all of this the Mueller Probe powers on. It’s yielding fruit and sparking other investigations. In just weeks a new Congress will be seated, this time with a Democratic Majority in the House. The subpoenanas will fly and the Trumpists will surely get blasted on TV. President Melt-Down might not handle it so well.

The president seems to have descended into Persecutory Delusions.

2019 Predictions

There’s gonna be plenty of ill advised Military moves. trump’s military thinking is confined to the Patton Biopic. He’ll be more like a dark ages warlord than the leader of the free world.

The Government shutdown may become, for awhile, a fact of life. Trump shows no inclination towards reason on this. Should the government still be closed in April he could get himself removed just on the basis of not fulfilling the Oath of Office Per Se. He’s on a bad trajectory with this, just like everything else.

My only market prediction is Extreme Unpredictability and erratic shifts. Deep uncertainty could set in and wreck the economy any given week.

I also predict the Mueller Report drops right around the Superbowl and past that anything could happen. After the Superbowl there’s another sports desert where people will pay more attention. At that point, if a couple of these predictions pan out, I see his approval spinning down to the lower 30s and upper 20s and staying there by April.

See my post on his Decompensation by clicking here.

So What’s the Deal with Elizabeth Warren’s Native American Heritage?

16 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by therealmcteag in So What's the Deal with Elizabeth Warren's Native American Heritage?, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

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2018 midterm election, americas fastest growing ethnicity, democratic presidential hopefuls, Elizabeth Warren, Franklin Roosevelt, have we had a native american president?, Native American DNA, Native American heritage, Senator Warren, Teddy Roosevelt, trump, Unknown native americans

Before I talk about Elizabeth Warren’s DNA I want to point out the real story is the long racist, anti-woman screed disgraceful president Trump has been off on since the announcement. He’s said a bunch of really despicable things and essentially has been the truly awful bully we’ve become accustomed to.

Elizabeth Warren’s Native American Ancestry Claims

She’s probably telling the truth. It’s not a huge number. Certainly seems too small to lie about. The number out there is 1 part in 168.

My quick math would put it anywhere from 6 to 8 generations back. So we’re talking maybe 1700s for the last full-blooded native american ancestor. if it’s entering her line 6 generations back the person would be 1/3 native american in about the year 1750?

Lets split the difference and say it’s 7 generations back. That’s a generation when there’s 128 direct ancestors. They’re may not be a moment when they’re all alive at the same time either. It’s complicated! Notably even that far back the ancestor would not be fully native based on the size of the match Warren’s claiming.

So to put it in the terms of Lifetime of the Last full-blooded ancestors; picture a room with 168 people in it. They cover parts of the 7th and 8th generation back. For fun imagine them in their 18th century garb and remember its likely they’re not all that okay with each other on a bunch of levels. Many never set foot in America and live out their lives in Europe.

One of these people would be Native American.

Over 300 years they reproduce into a steadily smaller siphon of direct ancestors as we approach the present. Fast forward 2-300 years and you have Elizabeth Warren. It’s not quite that simple, but that’s not the craziest or least scientific way I’ve heard this put.

Whether her family story of anti Native American oppression is true is hard to say. Best case she’s just over 7 generations removed and the native american ancestor is an unwilling subject of the British Crown. Someone would have to have been keeping serious score of all of their neighbors to know this, but hey, theres people that petty. Just look at Trump. So who knows?

It’s also probably no longer important how native she is, she IS. I do not think she will lead with this and shouldn’t. To me this is mostly because there’s a high likelihood we have already had a president with some Native DNA and simply don’t know it.

Either Roosevelt is a decent candidate due to the long period of time the family had been in America. They were like 9th generation New Yorkers of the New Amsterdam Vintage! Thats a lot of generations. None of the 692 direct ancestors that make up the 9th generation back, or anyone they married on the way, was part native? How many Roosevelt’s lost a first wife to child-birth and remarried to mix it up more? I’ve sometimes wondered if James Earle Carter may have something other than pure european DNA as well. How many generations in America for the Carter’s?

Of note; Warren has yet to release any kind of truly reliable or scientific percentage or number. The best number I’ve heard out there, specifically from CNN, is 1/ 168th Native American. This, I believe would make me 900 times more Native American, but don’t quote me.

Nothing Elizabeth Warren has ever done or said has been anywhere near as disrespectful as the repeated racists attacks Trump has launched against her. The president is simply a completely dysfunctional racist with no sense of appropriateness. It’s hard to say where this truly pointless national conversation will get us.

As far as a potential future president, while I tend to like Warren’s ideas I find stunts like this off putting. Its like 21 days til an election that she’s not running in. Bad team spirit by Warren sucking the oxygen out of the room for Democrats! Does NOT reflect well on her as a potential leader.

Back to Trump, who still doubts climate change, that the Russians hacked the election or that Gold Star Families deserve respect and basically is just a despicable guy. He’s disgraced himself a bunch of times making racist comments over this situation. Here’s one horrific example of Trump’s inappropriateness as he diminishes two American War Heros with a racist rant –

Well, Warren didn’t use a commercial test, so we can ask out loud if she ordered up the results ahead of time. So there’s going to be that asterisk. Trump will seize on it just like he seized on Obama’s Birth Certificate only to simply dismiss as fake all proof.

The president, of course, is an inveterate liar. Much more of a liar than if Elizabeth Warren were to have faked distant Native roots.

More to the point, if she were lying maybe a full percentage point would have been better? Seems like this is plain old true and, with a number so small, likely accurate. Who would bother to lie on a scale so minute when a simple verbal correction would not have upset anyone?

I do not think Elizabeth Warren is lying. I am confidant that odds of her actually having native DNA were pretty high just waking in the morning. The story was essentially true and we have some proof now. That the amount of DNA she actually has could be described as minimal is something we will hear about endlessly forever. I doubt she wins this, true or not. Trump’s just too effective a bully.

Of note- Trump is a liar to the core and is not going to make good on the ‘Million Dollar Bet’ against Warren having Native American ancestry no matter what. This is a guy who set up a phony charity that was so shady and such a money grab that Thievin’ Trump and his family are SPECIFICALLY FORBIDDEN to form or be part of any charity in their home state of New York for fraud and ‘Self-Dealing”.

Trump also has claimed to not believe he was the person who was on the Access Hollywood Bus tape when all other people on the tape claim he was there and Trump himself admitted it was him. This won’t change. The guy is completely dishonest. He’s also a sociopath and a pathological liar who lies even to himself. You don’t need to be a geneticist to know the Trump Crime Family are the ones whose DNA you just don’t want!

Everything we’ve heard about the case of Elizabeth Warren suggests that she was right when she heard tales of distant native ancestry from her family. What seems shitty is the perception she used it to advance herself and that she’s maybe just another rich white lady looking for a “Minority Card.”

This is probably not a good characterization of Warren or anyone else because it seems that it was true and merely exaggerated or misunderstood by the people relaying the information. As far as I know there were no geneticists in Warrens family tree so we can’t really kill her for just simply being like as much as 1/3 of all North Americans.

Are White Americans REALLY European?

Another absolutely impossible to ignore part of the conclusions is that white Americans are not really Europeans if they’ve been here any amount of time. And if we stop all immigration today we’re all still going to slowly become some kind of American Race of mixed DNA.

So bottom line? It’s really unlikely a 4th generation American could not be part native american. Probably a very small part, but part. Spare everyone the dream catchers, acknowledge it’s the evidence of a Genocide that was only skin deep.

Now we’re finding out that the popular view of Native Americans in pretty much every single Western Movie before The Outlaw Josey Wales in the mid 1970’s is actually personally offensive to us and we were somewhat racist against ourselves. I blame society on this one.

And that’s a lot to think about. And that’s why there’s this whole separate post from a ways back about when I tested my own DNA and discovered I had Native American DNA.

NOTE – this HAD to be hived off from the original post (the previous one). It got out of hand and developed a life of its own.

The Single Biggest Flaw Killing Star Trek Discovery

03 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by therealmcteag in Star Trek Discovery Fan Review, Star Trek Discovery Fan Revview, Star Trek Discovery Season 1, Star Trek Discovery Season 2, The Single Biggest Flaw Killing Star Trek Discovery, Uncategorized

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bad star trek, bad stories, bad writing, can they save star trek discovery?, fan issues, Fan Review, fixing star trek discovery, how to save star trek discovery, problems with star trek discovery, should i watch star trek discoovery, Star Trek Discovery, star trek discovery bad, star trek discovery flaws, star trek discovery revview, the flaw in star trek discovery

Star Trek’s disappointing Discovery is revving up for a second Star Trek Hating season of unworthy rubbish. While the special effects are impressive and the title sequence is fine, there’s nothing else to like about the show.

Don’t blame the cast! It’s the stories! Specifically – the uncreative and lazy over use of a single plot device to drive most episodes. Basically what’s on the line in almost every episode is nothing less then – THE END OF ALL THINGS!!

The Stakes Are Too Damn High!

While the acting isn’t a problem and the production values at most points are high the story just isn’t there. The show’s Trope-y and unrealistically high staked at all times. Worst of all it’s unnecessarily disrespectful to the original characters they needlessly entangle in the hot mess of contradictions that is every episode of Discovery, but I digress…

Star Trek Discovery has simply left behind the concept of saving a few cast members, or an entire ship, or a planet in any given episode or story arc.

By episode 8 we’re talking about saving the universe and by the end of the season we were looking at “saving all life everywhere across the entire multi-verse of universes.” It was preposterous and unrelatible.

They also just will not go to a planet and just explore or make contact. The one time they consent to do this we get the only watchable episode. In that episode only a couple of characters were at risk and there was a limited “Away Mission” that was familiar and fun.

Rather than learn from this the show’s next episode takes a turn for the too serious again and we find ourselves saving several universes in every show.

It’s a little like Babylon 5 that way. While there were some good things about the show it also suffered the stakes always being far too high.

As far as Discovery goes, well its just too much. You can only stretch a rubber band almost to the breaking point so many times before it stops snapping back into shape again. It’s tedious and fatiguing to always be at the edge of the universe ending. Throw in that if the way to avoid the universe ending is sort of bland or a little too convenient it just makes the whole thing that much less entertaining. Like some magic spore technology co-opted from the Dune books

Lets see just the ship and crew in danger around a strange planet a little more often as a starting point for fixing this very flawed show. The good old days of a possible warp core breach or a good old hide n seek with some bad guys wouldn’t be some kind of step backwards, but it seems the current writers feel that way. They’re making the classic mistake- fixing the parts of Star Trek that weren’t broken.

Dare I suggest some exploring in the Final Frontier? Maybe meet an analogous species that relates to some current societal problem? You know, Star Trek stuff.

The Real McTeag

~ 'Real Views from the Real World'

Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The WordPress AdWords Monetization Fiasco

Trump’s Bizarre, Not Good, Self Contradicting State of the Union

Don’t Trust Sketchy Tulsi Gabbard

Trump’s Horrific 2018 – From “Fear” to Insanity

So What’s the Deal with Elizabeth Warren’s Native American Heritage?

The Single Biggest Flaw Killing Star Trek Discovery

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Bad Trailers and Two Bad Sequel Prequels Point to Bad Movie

The Curious Curse of Hiring JJ Abrams

Theres Only One George Lucas

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