Let’s look at a single small example of how Wall Street is an enormous asset that needs to be exploited for common good. Please observe the following list:

Barclays, BNP Paribas, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of China, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg, Morgan Stanley, Mizuho Financial, Nomura, Citigroup, Societe Generale, Scotiabank, TD Securities, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, HSBC, RBC Capital Markets, UBS, UniCredit.

These are, of course, the world’s leading financial institutions, many of which are referred to as “Wall Street.” Do you know what else they are? They are the institutions that Putin asked to lend him money this week. And can you guess why Putin needs more money? Given that on the same day he asked for money Putin expressed disappointment with the slow progress of Assad’s troops in Syria and ramped up warfare in the East of Ukraine, it becomes clear that the money is needed for more war.

And what does more war mean? It means more death, more destruction, more refugees, more likelihood that the EU will collapse and the Western European social welfare net will be destroyed, more power to the far-right forces in Europe and, eventually, the US. Which, obviously, are exactly the results Putin wants to buy with the money he is trying to borrow.

Now, let’s think logically. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to be able to reach out to the companies listed above and get them to refuse (and convince their partners to refuse) Putin the loan? Or is the opportunity to rant about how evil they are (and they absolutely are that and more) more valuable? 

This is only a single tiny example among a bizillion and one of why every US government is kissing up to Wall Street. 

Now, let’s conduct another small exercise in logic. Let’s say the US conducts a “political rrrrrevolution” and sends all of the vicious Wall Street evildoers to jail. We can now remove all of them from the above-cited list. What’s left? Barclays, BNP Paribas, Bank of China, Mizuho Financial, Nomura, Scotiabank, etc. There is now no way of convincing them not to lend Putin money. To the contrary, they are angry as hell and willing to hit you where it hurts. And we end up with more death, more destruction, more refugees, the collapse of the EU, etc, etc. 

So unless the goal here is “world political rrrrrevolution” (and if it is, please accept my deepest sympathy for your tenuous mental state), that doesn’t sound like a fantastic plan. Even if it were remotely realistic.

And to conclude, the capacity to accept the world in its enormous complexity and not to respond to it with a neurotic need to simplify reality with reductive emotional slogans is a sign of psychological maturity.

It is absolutely hilarious, albeit in a sad, hopeless way, that Liberals have found their own deeply inane equivalent to the Right’s obsession with Hillary’s emails. It’s called Hillary’s speeches. Seeing a woman who has the power to make money is as intolerable for them as it is for their opponents to see a woman who wields political power.

Of course, if our public space were not overrun with tantrumy children, we’d all be thanking our lucky stars that we have a candidate who has an in with Wall Street. Wall Street is one of the country’s greatest assets and, like all assets, it’s paid for dearly. An intelligent, mature thing to do would be calmly and shrewdly to negotiate lowering this cost. A dumb approach that has already failed pathetically would be to shriek like an unhinged rabbit that greed is bad. When the shriekers are faced with the need to contemplate a successful woman, the burden becomes too heavy and they get completely deranged.

The rest of us is now doomed to witness an electoral campaign conducted by the perennially aggrieved and confused to the tune of “Emails! Speeches! Emails! Speeches!” while the Republican nominees heave a sigh of relief.

I just heard Kasich say on TV that the President of the US is “the father of the American people.” And here I almost thought he wasn’t a creep.

And since I’m on the subject of illustrious Patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, I want to mention that the only person whom Stalin always came out to greet personally on his frequent visits was the elderly Patriarch. Stalin would hug the Patriarch lovingly and guide him towards his office.

Of course, Stalin had every reason to love the Patriarch. Every Sunday, every church held a service in honor of “our God-given leader Stalin.” And every priest joyfully snitched on parishioners, making sure that everything that was said during confession was immediately known to the KGB.

Just so you understand the caliber of the human being the Pope is so desperate to suck up to, let me tell you a single story about Goondiayev, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Goondiayev lives with his mistress in an enormous two-million-dollar apartment in Moscow. Upstairs from Goondiayev, in an apartment just as huge, lives an elderly, frail doctor whose last remaining joy in life is the massive library he’s been collecting his entire life. The doctor is a medical superstar who, when he was younger and healthier, saved hundreds of people.

Goondiayev decided it would be cool to steal the doctor’s apartment and turn his own place into a two-story abode. So he sued the old, sick doctor for somehow spilling a lot of invisible dust into Goondiayev’s apartment and damaging the health of Goondiayev and his mistress. With said invisible dust. That, allegedly, came from the doctor’s large library.

The Putinoid court obviously took the invisible dust very seriously and ordered the sick, old doctor to pay Goondiayev damages in the amount equaling the entire value of the doctor’s apartment. After which the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church gleefully ordered the elderly doctor to vacate the premises together with his library.

This is not even remotely the worst story featuring Goondiayev. It’s one of so many that they have become completely mundane and expected. There are many people who have been destroyed by this greedy bastard and his gang of cronies.

I thought this vile, stupid Pope could not possibly be any more disgusting, but oh yes, he can. He’s going to Cuba to meet the corrupt KGB snitch and notorious gangster Goondiayev.

Goondiayev’s current assignment is to work as the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Even in an organization as sensationally and shamelessly corrupt as ROC, Goondiayev stands out for his insane greed and debauchery. Goondiayev is close to Putin, approving and celebrating every atrocity his KGB colleague commits.

Nobody with a shred of decency would agree to appear in the same room with Goondiayev who’s known for mocking the Bible and making millions from tobacco and alcohol sales. Stupid Francis, however, wouldn’t know what decency looks like if it stared him in the face. He’s happy to flit to Cuba to kiss up to Goondiayev, Putin, and Castro because he doesn’t care about faith, the Bible or Jesus. All this piece of shit wants is to appear in the news and feel important.

Oy vey, why are Uber drivers so damn talkative? It’s like they’ve spent 20 years in solitary confinement and now want to get in all the chatter they’ve been deprived of. 

I love to talk but I only talk about profound subjects. Small talk makes my brain hurt. And today’s driver almost talked my ear off during the hour-long ride. Somebody totally needs to start a company where passengers can pay more to get silent drivers. Maybe a fine could be imposed per every word the driver says. 

What I miss from the old Blogger platform is that I could install the visitor tracking system and see where readers came from. It was really fascinating to see that whenever an angry post about Lloyd Blankfein was published, I’d get numerous hits from Goldman Sachs. (And then Google Ads would send me angry emails about alienating unnamed business partners. Good times.)

It was also fun to see hits from the FBI offices at Quantico, VA or all kinds of governmental organizations in Washington. WordPress doesn’t give me this opportunity, and I don’t even know if Rauner or somebody from his entourage has been reading my posts.

There were disturbing moments, as well. Somebody from the Nashville, Tennessee police department was obsessively entering into Google search the queries of “I hate Clarissa,” “fuck Clarissa” and “Clarissa is SO MEAN!!!”

In everything else, Blogger was vastly inferior to WordPress, and I’m not sorry I made the move.

What is happening in Ukraine is a metaphor for individual human existence. Ukrainians have defeated an overwhelmingly stronger and better prepared enemy and turned a deeply hostile public opinion in their favor. But the internal enemy of deep-seated corruption is proving a lot harder to defeat. Corruption exists inside oneself, and inner demons are always a lot harder to vanquish than any external enemy.

This is why people so often hide from the need to battle their inner demons behind rants about evil bosses, coworkers, neighbors, and all sorts of nasty oppressors.