A stopped clock may be right twice a day, but a stopped military clock is right only once per day.

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Just a reminder: the Russia investigation “was a nothing,” as my father used to say. No evidence advanced to show that any American solicited aid from Russia, and no evidence that the meagre “interference” on social media by a bunch of Russians affected any outcome, not so much as one vote:

There is no allegation in the indictment of any effect on the outcome of the election.

. . . There is no allegation in this indictment that any American had any knowledge, and that the nature of the [allegedly Russian] scheme was that the [Russian] defendants took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists, even going so far as to base their activities on virtual private network [VPN] here in the United States so if anybody traced it back to that first jump, they appeared to be Americans.

Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as recorded by CNBC, February 18, 1018.

The build-up to the final indictments in the Mueller Probe was relentlessly breathless, saying that Trump was doomed. And then? Nothing. Zip. Nada. All we had were pathetic prosecutions, the most ludicrous being of the named Russian “hackers.”

It is worth mentioning that the United States regularly intrudes on other countries’ elections far more thoroughly and effectively. The clutched pearls of the anti-Trumpers is so disingenuous.

And remember, one of the more recent elections that the U.S. Government interfered in was in the Ukraine.

So, naturally, as if led by an invisible hand with a wicked wit, Democrats, Deep State operatives, and the corporate media have pushed a bizarre Ukraine “interference” and “quid pro quo” and “bribery” allegation against the president for allegedly soliciting Ukrainians to “interfere” in our elections by investigating Joe Biden, Trump’s “political competitor.”

This is worth remembering as we gear up for the great fizzle that seems imminent regarding impeachment.

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Although we do learn some of our history from hoaxes, we learn far more of it from sources that are unabashedly fictional. Rather than our quest for ammunition or enlightenment, it is our yearning for entertainment that most often leads us astray. A 2001 study, for instance, found that nearly two-thirds of high school students surveyed based their understanding of the Vietnam War on the movie Forrest Gump. The same pattern might hold for the First Thanksgiving if only Hollywood found it more interesting.

Robert Tracy McKenzie, The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History (2013) .

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The “freedom of assumption” lies at the heart of human ontology, and it is our consideration of non-facts that make us who we are, and even allows us to act:

Note to praxeologists and “objectivists”: our values are determined by fancy as well as facts.

Meinong’s innovation is very similar to George Santayana’s doctrine of essences — which Santayana referred to as “promiscuous” in that the objects of our thought require no existence to be meaningful.

And from this line of reasoning we can see where the Ontological Argument fails.

This was my Thanksgiving message on Facebook, expressing my gratefulness for all the important objects of consciousness that do not exist.

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The Fourth Estate relentlessly pushes political power, but has no interest in uncovering the truth for our benefit. If the journalists/papers/news channels were really interested in Story they would be all over some of the biggest stories of our time. But their interest in Story is circumscribed by their interest in partisan power-mongering. What they offer, instead, is Ideological Narrative. Not quite the same thing. Because of this, they are easily influenced by the CIA and the rest of the Deep State, and side with it.

And they have no interest in ‘protecting women’ or #metoo or anything even slightly noble . . . if it disrupts their narratives of expanding secular power and the subjugation of a free people.

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As I understand the current impeachment case, it seems to have problems:

1. Neither the infamous quid or the notorious quo of the quid pro quo actually occurred — at best the case has it that Trump wanted to withhold aid to Ukraine in exchange for a promise to investigate the corruption of the Bidens, but the aid was eventually given and the investigation did not happen.

2. The Ukrainian president was most interested in a meeting with Trump, and appears not to have realized at the time of negotiations that aid was on hold. Negotiating for meetings is trivial b.s. not worthy of review by Congress. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying in a deposition, not for his special White House hotel grift.

3. Testimony from the prime witness has Trump explicitly denying, upon a request for clarification, the withholding of aid as a negotiating tactic.

4. Rep. Schiff and the pro-Deep State press (CNN, MSNBC, et al.) continually characterizes what Trump wanted as ‘investigating a political rival’ and not as investigating obvious and frank and even boasted-about [‘well, son-of-a-bitch’] corruption on the part Joe Biden and his son.

5. The continual denials of any evidence for Biden wrong-doing by Democrats and the Deep State press, is mere stonewalling and denial — lying.

6 The principle of the Double Effect is at play here: we expect more than one motive to go into any complicated maneuver like the disputed Ukraine negotiation. Since investigating corruption is entirely legitimate, that provides more than enough cover even to get what Trump may have wanted regarding his ‘political rival’ Biden.

7. The irony of charging Trump with trying to get foreign powers to help get dirt on a political opponent is PRECISELY what Hillary Clinton did with the Russian Dossier — how pot-and-kettle can they get?

8. And as for the sheer horror of investigating a political rival, that is what Barack Obama did to Trump’s campaign. Quite clearly.

9. The whistleblower heard nothing himself — it was all hearsay, and after the testimonies, that ‘heard said’ turns out to be mere unheard suspicion.

10. It is obvious from the very words and grimaces of testifying Deep State operatives that what they really objected to was that their beloved ‘interagency consensus’ was being derailed by the new president’s very different approach. Anyone with an ounce of skepticism about the FBI, CIA and ‘the interagency’ should not give one vermin patootie for their commitment to their policies — they are not supposed to be in charge. Why any American would be sympathetic to this crowd of professional liars and incompetents I don’t know.

There is more, but this is enough to make me utterly incredulous about the charges, which seem weaker and more indicting of the side marshaling the indictments than of Trump.

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Talk about ‘interfering in our elections’! This story is out there, but does not seem to be getting much play:

The story seems interesting, anyway:

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota-5th) was recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive information through intermediaries to Iran, a Florida court has been told, as The Jerusalem Post confirmed.
Speaking to the Post, the office of the Congresswoman denied the allegations.
The claims came during testimony by Kuwati-born Canadian businessman Alan Bender, who was giving evidence in the trial of Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani. The Qatari emir’s brother stands accused of ordering his American bodyguard to murder two people, and of holding an American citizen hostage. His deposition, obtained by Al Arabiya English, was authenticated by the attorney for the plaintiffs, according to the publication.
Speaking from Toronto by video link, Bender told the Florida District Court that he met with Qatar’s Secretary to the Emir for Security Affairs Mohammad bin Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Masnad and two other senior Qatari officials.
According to his sworn deposition, the three officials told him: “If it wasn’t for our cash, Ilhan Omar would be just another black Somali refugee in America collecting welfare and serving tables on weekends.”Bender testified that the officials asked him to recruit American politicians and journalists as Qatari assets, and that when he objected, was told that several prominent figures were already on the payroll. Omar was described as the “jewel in the crown,” he said.

Donna Rachel Edmunds, “Ilhan Omar denies being ‘Qatari asset,’ witness confirms Jerusalem Post report,” Jerusalem Post, November 28, 2019.

But, that being said, if these accusations prove true, many crimes may have been made in all this. But not treason, since America is fighting no declared wars.

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It is well known that the title Benjamin R. Tucker gave to Steven T. Byington’s translation of Max Stirner’s great German work, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, is far from a perfect analog of the original. The Ego and Its Own does not suggest the original meanings in anything like its fullness. That being the case, what would be a better title? Something, I think, like

• The Self-Owner and His Property
• The Self-Owned Self
• The Properties of the Self-Owned Self
• Oneself as Owned Self
• The Self’s Own Liberated Property

A lot of self-help book titles come to mind:

• Disowning Servility
• De-Slaving the Self
• Freer Selves Self-Owning
• Taking Ownership of Oneself

And perhaps more scholarly visions could hail from the title:

• Selfism from Max Stirner to Jack Woodford
• The Properties of Property and the Ownership of Self
• Oneself as Self–Proprietie: The Ownership of Personhood

And one that I’m working on:

The Self and Its Aptness

A friend suggests “aptitude” is a better word than “aptness,” but the primary definitions of “aptitude” scuttle the intended meaning, and so is not apt.

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The above squibs have all been culled from my personal and professional Facebook page, from the last few days’ postings. The photo at top is something I snapped at Long Beach Peninsula today, a bright, sunny, cold day: seagull prints in the sand.